UC-NRLF 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

GIF'T   OF" 

Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 

Received  October,  1894. 
Accessions  No.  •      Class  Afo. 


- 


34 


..£.  -c-~^vu.    g      ^     / 


GOD   IN   HISTORY; 


OR, 


PRESENCE  AND  PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD 


-.. 
THE  AFFAIRS  OF  MEN. 


BY    REV.   JOHN    CUMMING,    D.D. 


REVISED   BY  D.   P.  KIDDEK. 


PUBLISHED   BY   LANE   &   SCOTT, 

FOR  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  UNION  OF  THE  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH, 

200  Mulberry-street. 

JOSEPH   LONGKING,  PRINTER. 

1852. 


C.? 


PREFACE. 


THE  basis  of  the  following  little  work  was  a  lec- 
ture delivered  in  Exeter  Hall  by  request  of  that 
excellent  institution,  the  "  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association."  It  was  found  impossible  to  present 
more  than  a  sketch  or  outline  in  a  lecture.  The 
present  treatise  is  an  attempt  to  fill  up  the  outline, 
by  embodying  in  it  facts,  and  incidents,  and  oc- 
currences, necessarily  omitted,  or  briefly  alluded 
to,  in  the  lecture.  The  subject  is  an  intensely  in- 
teresting one  —  rich  in  suggestive  illustrations, 
and  practical  in  so  far  as  it  comes  home  to  the 
bosom  and  business  of  every  man. 

The  author  has  avoided  introducing  subjects  on 
which  his  mind  is  fully  made  up,  but  on  which 
there  is  much  difference  of  opinion  among  good 
and  wise  men.  It  was  his  design,  and  it  is  his 
desire,  to  point  out  the  presence  of  God  rather  in 
facts  acknowledged  by  all,  than  in  discussions 
raised  on  those  facts  by  conflicting  parties.  While 
some  see  in  such  facts  accidents — others  party 


4  PREFACE. 

principles — others  illnature,  intrigue,  treachery 
— he  sees,  and  thinks  others  who  look  at  them 
impartially  will  also  see,  in  them  or  over  them  the 
presence  of  God.  While  many  would  drive  out 
of  the  world  the  idea  of  God,  there  are  increasing 
numbers  who  see,  and  recognize,  and  proclaim 
His  presence  with  growing  earnestness  and  ecstasy. 
To  the  author  it  appears  that  all  things  are  cast- 
ing light  on  Christianity,  or  rather  verging  to- 
ward that  point  in  the  long-continued  procession, 
at  which  what  is  now  believed  will  be  seen  — 
namely,  that  creation,  providence,  and  revelation, 
are  all  of  One  and  to  One,  who  is  God  over  all. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  L 

THE  CHRISTIAN  EVER  DELIGHTS  IN  TRACES  OF  GOD  —  GOD  THE 
UNIVERSAL  AUTHOR  OF  GOOD  BUT  NOT  OF  EVIL  —  MAN  IN 
HISTORY  —  GOD  IN  HISTORY  —  ATHEISTIC  VIEWS  —  GOD  RULES 
SMALL  EVENTS  AS  WELL  AS  GREAT  —  CHARACTER  OF  DIFFERENT 
HISTORIANS  —  GOD  DOES  NOT  SANCTION  ALL  THINGS  THAT  HE 

SUFFERS MISERIES     OF      INFIDELITY HUME VOLTAIRE 

D'ALEMBERT NARROW  VIEWS  OF   HISTORY POETIC  VIEWS 

ENLARGED     CHRISTIAN     VIEWS THE      PERISHING     AND      THE 

ENDURING — PERIODS    OF    DISCOVERY     GOVERNED      BY     PROVI- 
DENCE  PAGE   7 

CHAPTER  H. 

SACRED  HISTORY  —  THE  FIRST  PROPHECY  —  APOSTASY — FLOOD  — 
BABEL  —  GREEKS,  JEWS,  AND  ROMANS  COMPARED  —  THE  GREAT 
DELIVERER — TRIUMPHS  OF  THE  GOSPEL 39 

CHAPTER  m. 

PROPHETIC  HISTORY  —  HAM  —  ISHMAEL  —  EGYPT,  NINEVEH,  THE 
CHAUXEANS,  THE  JEWS  —  ROMANISM — THE  INQUISITION RE- 
SULTS OF  THE  PAPAL  SYSTEM  —  PRESERVATION  OF  THE  SCRIP- 
TURES— LAYARD'S  DISCOVERIES  IN  NINEVEH 66 

• 

CHAPTER  IV. 

PROVIDENCE  HAS  OVERRULED  FOR  GOOD  THE  DISPUTES  OF  THE 
CHURCH  —  ART  OF  PRINTING  —  JOSEPH — SAUL  —  JOSEPHUS  — 

GIBBON TETZEL LUTHER MELANCTHON THE      FRENCH 

REVOLUTION  —  NAPOLEON  —  ERA   OF    MISSIONARY    SOCIETIES  — 
SOCIETY...  •    86 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

NEW  ATTACKS  OF  INFIDELITY  —  DEPOSITIONS  OF  THE  POPE  — 
POPERY  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  FROM  QUEEN  MARY  TO  KING  WILLIAM 

MORE  RECENT  FACTS PEEL'S  MEASURES  AND  FALL  —  POPERY 

AND  CHOLERA  —  EUROPEAN  REVOLUTIONS  OF  1848  —  CIVIL  WARS 
—  MARAT PAGE   102 

CHAPTER  VI. 

RECORDS  OF  HISTORY,  MESSAGES  FROM  GOD — CHRISTIANITY  THE 
STRENGTH  OF  ENGLAND —  REFORM  BILL  —  FREE  TRADE  —  HAPPY 
CONCESSIONS  —  COMMERCIAL  REVULSION  —  POTATO  BLIGHT  — 
CHOLERA  AND  SANITARY  LAWS  —  BENEVOLENT  AGENCIES  —  GOD 
IN  BIOGRAPHY,  PERSONAL  APPEALS 120 


GOD   IN   HISTORY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   CHRISTIAN    EVER    DELIGHTS    IN    TRACES  OF  GOD  —  GOD    THE 

UNIVERSAL  AUTHOR  OF   GOOD   BUT  NOT  OF  EVIL MAN    IN 

HISTORY  —  GOD  IN  HISTORY — ATHEISTIC  VIEWS  —  GOD  RULES 

SMALL  EVENTS  AS  WELL  AS  GREAT CHARACTER  OF  DIFFERENT 

HISTORIANS  —  GOD  DOES  NOT  SANCTION  ATX  THINGS  THAT  HE 

SUFFERS MISERIES    OF    INFIDELITY  —  HUME VOLTAIRE 

D'ALEMBERT —  NARROW  VIEWS  OF  HISTORY  —  POETIC  VIEWS  — 

ENLARGED    CHRISTIAN  VIEWS  —  THE    PERISHING    AND    THE    EN- 
DURING—  PERIODS  OF  DISCOVERY  GOVERNED  BY  PROVIDENCE. 

THE  Christian  delights  to  trace  everywhere  the 
foot-prints  of  his  God — to  hear  in  every  sound 
the  voice  of  his  Father,  and  to  gather  new  proofs 
of  his  love,  his  power,  his  acting  in,  and  through, 
and  hy  all  things  for  his  glory.  He  sees  and 
hears  Him  in  the  Bihle.  He  thirsts  to  see  and 
hear  Him  in  creation  also ;  and  the  more  clearly 
he  is  ahle  to  realize  his  presence  above,  around, 
below,  the  nearer  he  believes  is  that  blessed  time 
when  the  whole  earth  shall  be  filled  with  his 
glory.  It  was  a  fine  conception  in  ancient  my- 
thology, which  represented  the  Muse  of  History 
a&  the  daughter  of  Jupiter.  This  fable  is  a  sha- 


8  GOD  IN   HISTOKY. 

dow  of  a  great  fact ;  all  history  is  the  develop- 
ment of  Christianity,  all  its  chapters  find  their 
coherency,  and  harmony,  and  issue  in  Christ. 

I  assume  that  whatever  evil,  sin,  imperfection, 
disorder,  may  appear  in  history,  or  in  the  world, 
are  not  of  God,  but  interpolations.  God  did  not 
make  sin,  nor  is  He  in  any  sense  the  author  of  it. 

I  assume  that  all  the  good  that  is  developed  in 
history — all  beneficent,  holy,  happy  issues  that 
evolve  from  the  intermingling  conflicts  of  persons, 
principles,  passions  —  is  directly  from  God.  I 
take  it  for  a  fixed  and  sure  truth,  that  when  evil 
is  overruled  for  good,  darkness  for  light,  in  the 
progress  of  events  —  and  man's  selfish  or  side- 
ends  for  great  public  and  beneficent  results,  or 
directly  made  to  originate  them  ;  and  when,  above 
all,  we  discover  the  creature  planning  his  own 
purpose,  irrespective  of  law,  or  duty,  or  love,  and 
God  overruling  it  for  his  great  designs,  and  the 
evil  intended  working  out  the  good  that  was  not 
intended  —  we  see  in  all  this  visibly  the  foot- 
prints of  God  —  the  traces  of  his  Omnipotent 
beneficence  —  the  fact  of  God  in  History.  One 
of  our  own  poets  has  well  said : — 

"  There's  a  Divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Bough  hew  them  as  we  will/' 

Man  is  in  history — its  most  wonderful,  and 
often  its  most  perplexing  phenomenon.  Angels 
are  in  history  —  opening  its  mysterious  seals, 
sounding  its  awful  trumpets,  and  pouring  forth 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  9 

its  dreadful  vials.  Satan  is  in  history  —  ever 
active  to  suggest  what  is  evil,  arrest  what  is 
good,  or  overthrow  what  is  holy,  pure,  perma- 
nent, divine. 

But  God  is  in  history.  It  is  impossible  for  any 
dispassionate  mind  to  turn  over  the  leaves  of 
history  and  fail  to  see  what  many  would  denounce 
as  a  disturbing  element,  but  what  the  Christian 
hails  as  the  finger  of  Deity  —  preventing  trains 
of  circumstances,  and  conspiracies  of  parties,  from 
bringing  forth  their  natural  fruits  and  ending  in 
catastrophes  which  would  long  ere  now  have  de- 
populated the  earth,  or  made  it  a  scene  of  wide- 
spread and  growing  misery.  The  evidences  of  a 
presiding  Providence  in  the  affairs  of  men,  in  the 
biographies  of  peasants  and  in  the  exploits  of 
conquerors,  and  in  the  policy  of  cabinets,  and  in 
the  rise,  and  reign,  and  abdication  of  kings,  is 
just  as  patent  to  a  reflecting  —  above  all  to  a 
Christian  —  mind,  as  is  the  sun  to  the  outward 
eye  in  the  unfolding  buds  of  spring,  and  in  the 
rich  blossoms  of  summer.  Were  God  to  let  the 
world  alone,  man  would  become  a  fiend  ;  angels 
would  flee  as  from  another  Gomorrah,  and  cease 
to  minister  to  it  ;  Satan,  wearing  his  burning 
coronet  of  sin,  and  holding  the  regalia  of  hell, 
would  lord  it  over  sea  and  land  ;  and  time,  com- 
mencing with  paradise,  would  close  with  pande- 
monium. 

Many,  however,  are  anxious  to  get  rid  of  all 
idea  of  God  in  history  or  in  the  world.  They  do 
10  - 


0*  THE 

ItJIITBASXTT 


10  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

not  wish  to  feel  it.  They  desire  to  extinguish 
every  sense  of  his  presence  or  recollection  of  their 
own  responsibility.  "  No  God"  is  their  wish,  and 
"  No  God "  is  therefore  their  conclusion.  An 
atheistic  heart  makes  atheistic  logic.  It  is  not 
with  the  feeling  of  simple  aversion,  hut  with 
emotions  of  desperate  hostility  that  they  think 
of  God.  They  are  not  atheists  but  antitheists. 
They  are  conscious  of  a  latent  feeling  within  that 
God  is,  and  this  feeling  they  persecute  and  tear 
up,  just  because  it  torments  them  in  proportion 
to  its  strength.  . 

Yet,  just  in  as  far  as  such  persons  succeed  in 
emptying  their  minds  of  all  idea  of  the  presence 
of  God  in  the  history  of  the  world,  they  add  to 
their  misery,  and  increase  the  chaos  and  confu- 
sion already  within  them.  To  an  unlettered 
peasant  the  firmanent  on  a  clear  winter  evening 
glows  with  splendor  like  the  city  of  God,  but  it 
seems  nevertheless  to  his  eye  a  wilderness  of  tum- 
bling and  eccentric  orbs  that  may  any  moment 
come  into  collision.  But  to  an  astronomer's  eye, 
our  planets  are  revolving  each  on  its  axis,  fixed 
and  sure,  and  all  around  the  sun  ;  and  that  sun, 
with  all  his  planets,  is  but  a  group  revolving 
round  an  inner  and  more  central  sun  ;  and  all 
that  mighty  host  but  sentinels  around  that  throne 
of  Deity,  from  which  they  derive  their  fixity  and 
glory.  The  latter  feels  a  repose  in  contemplating 
the  glorious  panorama,  and  a  conviction  of  order 
and  permanence  to  which  the  former  must  be  an 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  11 

utter  stranger.  Such  is  the  difference  between 
seeing  all  the  facts  of  history  as  accidental  occur- 
rences and  seeing  them  all  projected  from  God, 
or  overruled  h j  Him  —  for  grand  and  beneficial 
issues.  Others,  however,  feel  it  an  unspeakable 
joy  to  see  the  shadow  of  Deity  sweep  along  the 
currents  of  time,  and  to  hear  the  voice  of  God, 
as  of  old,  at  eventide  amid  the  trees  of  the  garden. 
They  see  him,  and  delight  to  see  him  in  verses, 
chapters,  and  books ;  in  the  youngest  children, 
and  in  the  oldest  cherubim ;  in  the  dew-drop 
dancing  on  the  leaf,  or  in  the  ocean  girdling  the 
earth  with  its  glorious  zone ;  in  the  smallest 
molecule  of  light,  and  in  the  majestic  mountain 
or  the  everlasting  hills ;  in  the  tripping  of  an 
infant's  foot,  and  in  the  overturning  of  a  mon- 
arch's throne ;  in  the  flight  of  Louis  Blanc,  and 
in  the  fall  of  Louis  Philippe. 

We  call  certain  things  little  because  they  seem 
so  to  us — we  judge  after  the  sight.  But  nothing 
is  little,  because  nothing  exists  isolated  and  di- 
vided from  other  things.-  A  spark  from  the  anvil 
is  little  in  itself,  but  falling  amid  the  summer 
grass  it  sets  prairies  on  fire,  or  sends  the  destroy- 
ing flame  along  the  streets  of  a  great  metropolis. 
What  is  apparently  so  insignificant  as  an  acorn  ? 
and  if  laid  aside  on  the  shelf,  and  left  alone,  it 
moulders  and  corrupts  ;  but  cast  into  the  earth  it 
germinates  and  grows  up  into  the  mighty  oak — 
the  monarch  of  the  woods,  and  in  due  time  it  is 
the  strength  of  the  gallant  ship  that  rides  the 


12  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

sea-billow,  and  connects  distant  continents,  and 
carries  the  word  and  the  messengers  of  salvation 
to  them  that  are  in  darkness. 

An  apple  falling  from  a  tree  is  a  very  common, 
and  seemingly  a  very  insignificant  thing ;  yet  to 
Newton's  eye  it  unbosomed  all  the  significance  of 
the  solar  system  —  it  was  the  exponent  of  a  law 
which  runs  from  the  nadir  to  the  zenith,  and 
binds  with  unseen,  but  irresistible  cohesion,  all 
worlds,  and  suns,  and  stars.  So  too  is  God  in 
little  things,  to  guide,  direct,  restrain,  or  arrest 
them. 

There  is  in  the  heart  of  man  a  disposition  to 
limit  the  presence  of  God  —  to  say  to  his  attri- 
butes, "  hitherto  and  no  farther ;"  to  admit  his 
presence  in  certain  places,  and  to  exclude  it  in 
others.  The  attempt  is  as  foolish  as  it  is  weak. 
There  can  be  no  space  around  us  without  air,  and 
there  can  be  none  without  God.  A  vacuum  and 
atheism  are  impossibilities.  God  is,  and  He 
everywhere  is. 

God  is  not  confined  to  Consecrated  acres,  and 
hallowed  shrines,  and  ecclesiastical  arrangements  ; 
his  power  is  felt  where  his  presence  is  deprecated 
or  unsuspected.  He  is  in  the  counting-house,  the 
shop,  the  exchange,  the  market  —  on  the  deck, 
the  battle-field  —  in  the  parliament,  the  palace, 
the  judgment-hall.  Whether  we  realize  it  or 
not ;  "  Thou  God  seest  me,"  may  be  truly  said 
by  prince,  and  peer,  and  senator,  and  lawyer,  and 
mechanic.  Forcing  none,  he  adjusts,  arranges, 


GOD  IN    HISTORY.  13 

and  directs  all;  making  microscopic  points  the 
pivots  of  gigantic  wheels,  and  a  random  shot,  as 
recently  in  Paris,  the  tocsin  of  a  revolution  that 
has  changed  the  condition,  connexion,  and  pros- 
pects of  almost  every  nation  in  Europe.  God  is 
in  all  history,  whether  he  he  seen,  or  not ;  in  its 
minutest  winding,  in  its  gentlest  ripple,  and  in  its 
roaring  cataracts,  in  its  longest  chapter  and  its 
shortest  paragraph,  at  your  festivals  and  fune- 
rals, heside  the  baby's  cradle  and  above  the 
monarch's  throne. 

It  is  the  presence  or  the  proscription  in  heart 
of  this  great  truth  that  gives  their  tone  and 
coloring  to  our  most  distinguished  and  popular 
or  authentic  historians  of  men,  nations,  and  coun- 
tries. Robertson  writes  history  very  much  like 
an  accomplished  litterateur  —  more  charmed  by 
the  sparks  struck  from  its  collisions,  than  arrest- 
ed by  the  sense  of  a  present  Deity  ;  more  anxious 
to  write  elegantly  than  solemnly.  Hume  writes 
as  if  he  were  the  hired  advocate  and  special 
pleader  of  Satan  —  seemingly  the  patron  of  reli- 
gion and  virtue,  really  the  desperate  enemy  of 
both.  Gibbon  brings  the  splendors  of  a  magnifi- 
cent genius  and  the  drapery  of  a  gorgeous  style 
to  do  the  same  work  which  Hume's  dry  metaphy- 
sical diction  had  failed  to  do.  Alison,  whatever 
may  be  thought  of  minor  views,  is  the  most  faith- 
ful, eloquent,  and  correct  Christian  writer  of  his- 
tory. Macaulay  sparkles  in  every  sentence,  cen- 
sures and  praises  rather  at  the  bidding  of  taste 


14  GOD  IN    HISTORY. 

than  truth.  He  is  a  speech-maker  of  the  highest 
order  —  a  writer  of  the  greatest  brilliancy.  A 
historian  ought  to  stand  like  the  apocalyptic 
angel  in  the  sun,  and  from  that  central  and  com- 
manding foot-hold  review  the  past  and  record  the 
present.  Impartiality  in  recording,  philosophy  in 
arranging,  and  piety  in  reflecting  ought  eminent- 
ly to  distinguish  him.  He  ought  to  see  the  facts 
of  history  as  the  astronomer  sees  the  stars  in  the 
firmament  —  each  in  its  orbit,  and  all  moving 
round  a  central  sun.  He  ought  to  see  God  in  all, 
and  yet  not  the  author  of  sin.  This  is  a  weighty 
distinction.  A  fierce  conclave  of  Covenanters  once 
went  out  to  murder  a  magistrate,  against  whose 
life  they  fanatically  thought  they  had  a  commis- 
sion :  the  magistrate  escaped,  but  one  Archbishop 
Sharp  happened  to  pass  — "  Truly,"  they  said, 
"  this  is  of  God,  and  it  is  a  clear  call  from  God 
to  fall  upon  him."  This  was  adding  blasphemy 
to  murder.  God  permitted  them  thus  to  sin, 
perhaps  in  order  to  teach  posterity  what  terrible 
atrocities  may  be  perpetrated  under  the  garb  of 
religion ;  but  God  was  no  further  in  that  san- 
guinary episode  —  at  least  as  far  as  human  eye 
can  discern.  We  cannot  exercise  too  great  watch- 
fulness in  this  and  in  similar  events.  If  we  as- 
sume the  presence  of  a  mission  from  God,  where 
there  is  only  the  suggestion  of  the  depravity  of 
man  —  if  we  confound  the  sufferance  of  events 
with  the  Divine  sanction  of  them  —  we  are  guilty 
of  teaching  that  God  consecrates  sin.  His  onini- 


GOD   IN    HISTORY.  15 

presence  is  where  his  approbation  is  not.  He  re- 
strains and  overrules  what  he  condemns  and  pun-  ^ 
ishes.  The  Jews  crucified  the  Lord  of  Glory,  and 
that  crucifixion  is  the  life  and  the  necessity  of  the 
world,  and  the  fulfillment  of  the  promises,  and 
purposes,  and  prophecies  of  four  thousand  years ; 
and  yet  the  guilt  of  Judas  that  betrayed,  Pilate 
that  condemned,  and  the  miserable  Chief  Priests, 
and  Scribes,  and  Pharisees,  and  populace  that 
crucified  is  as  distinct  as  it  is  distinctly  denounced. 
The  important  discrimination  which  we  have  en- 
deavored to  render  apparent,  is  thus  stated  by 
St.  Peter  in  Acts  iii,  13-19  :  "  The  God  of  Abra- 
ham, and  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob,  the  God  of  our 
fathers,  hath  glorified  his  Son  Jesus  ;  whom  ye 
delivered  up,  and  denied  him  in  the  presence  of 
Pilate,  when  he  was  determined  to  let  him  go. 
But  ye  denied  the  Holy  One  and  the  Just,  and  de- 
sired a  murderer  to  be  granted  unto  you ;  and 
killed  the  Prince  of  Life,  whom  God  hath  raised 
from  the  dead ;  whereof  we  are  witnesses.  And 
now,  brethren,  I  wot  that  through  ignorance  ye 
did  it,  as  did  also  your  rulers  ;  but  those  things, 
which  God  before  had  showed  by  the  mouth  of  all 
his  prophets,  that  Christ  should  suffer,  he  hath  so 
fulfilled.  Kepent  ye  therefore."  Thus  man's 
sins  which  destroy  himself  are  overruled  by  man's 
God  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  designs ;  and  not 
only  man's  sins,  but  his  follies  too.  Beautifully 
and  piously  has  the  poet  sung : — 


16  GOD   IN    HISTORY. 

"  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way, 

His  wonders  to  perform  ; 
He  plants  Ms  footsteps  in  the  sea, 
And  rides  upon  the  storm. 

Deep  in  unfathomable  mines 

Of  never-failing  skill, 
He  treasures  up  his  bright  designs, 

And  works  his  sovereign  will. 

His  purposes  will  ripen  fast, 

Unfolding  every  hour : 
The  bud  may  have  a  bitter  taste, 

But  sweet  will  be  the  flower. 

Blind  unbelief  is  sure  to  err, 

And  scan  his  work  in  vain : 
God  is  his  own  interpreter, 

And  He  will  make  it  plain." 

God  is  in  history — forgiving,  neutralizing,  and 
overruling,  and  soon  about  to  come  forth  to  extir- 
pate the  evil  that  is  in  the  world. 

God  is  in  history  —  creating,  upholding,  and 
carrying  to  glorious  victory  whatever  is  good  or 
holy  in  it. 

The  rejection  of  the  conviction  that  God  is  pre- 
sent— acting  in,  regulating,  restraining,  or  over- 
ruling all  facts,  and  times,  and  events  —  has  ag- 
gravated a  thousandfold  the  miseries  and  per- 
plexities of  skeptical  minds.  They  are  adrift  from 
the  anchorage-ground  of  Deity,  their  hark  on  an 
ungoverned  and  ungovernable  sea — helm  broken, 
compass  cast  away,  and  all  is  chaos.  They  can- 
not see  end  or  beginning,  because  they  wrant,  in 
order  to  harmonize  all,  that  which  is  to  history 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  17 

what  gravitation  is  to  nature — God.  Thus  wrote 
David  Hume  (Treatise  on  Human  Nature,  vol.  i., 
page  458) :  "  I  am  affrighted  and  confounded  with 
that  forlorn  solitude  in  which  I  am  placed  by  my 
philosophy.  When  I  look  abroad,  I  see  on  every 
side  dispute,  contradiction,  distraction.  When  I 
turn  my  eye  inward,  I  find  nothing  but  doubt  and 
ignorance.  Where  am  I,  or  what?  From  what 
causes  do  I  derive  my  existence,  and  to  what  con- 
dition shall  I  return  ?  I  am  confounded  with  these 
questions,  and  begin  to  fancy  myself  in  the  most 
deplorable  condition  imaginable,  environed  with 
the  deepest  darkness." 

Yoltaire  says :  "  Who  can  without  horror  con- 
sider the  whole  world  as  the  empire  of  destruc- 
tion ?  It  abounds  with  wonders  ;  it  abounds  also 
with  victims.  It  is  a  vast  field  of  carnage  and 
contagion.  Every  species  is  without  pity  pursued 
and  torn  to  pieces  through  the  earth,  the  air,  the 
water.  In  man  there  is  more  wretchedness  than 
in  all  other  animals  put  together.  He  loves  life, 
and  yet  he  knows  he  .must  die.  This  knowledge 
is  his  fatal  prerogative  —  other  animals  have  it 
not.  He  spends  the  transient  moments  of  his 
existence  in  diffusing  the  miseries  which  he  suf- 
fers — cutting  the  throats  of  his  fellow-creatures 
for  pay  —  in  cheating  and  being  cheated  —  in 
robbing  and  being  robbed  —  and  in  repenting  of 
all  he  does.  The  bulk  of  mankind  are  nothing 
more  than  a  crowd  of  wretches,  equally  criminal 
and  unfortunate.  I  tremble  at  the  review  of 


18  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

this  dreadful  picture.  I  wish  I  never  had  been 
born." 

We  have  heard  men  of  skeptic  minds  protest 
against  Christianity  as  gloomy,  unsocial,  exclu- 
sive, and  we  have  seen  them  wage  war  against  its 
existence  and  spread  as  if  a  calamity  and  curse. 
The  extracts  I  have  given  are  the  reply  they  re- 
quire. Their  language  is  as  different  from  the 
Christian's  as  is  the  air  of  the  ice-well  from  the 
genial  warmth  of  noon ;  wherever  we  find  a  true 
Christian  we  find  one  thankful  in  prosperity,  pa- 
tient in  trouble,  and  beautiful  in  all.  He  can 
say  and  sing : — 

"Although  the  fig-tree  shall  not  blossom,  nei- 
ther shall  fruit  be  in  the  vines  ;  the  labor  of  the 
olive  shall  fail,  and  the  fields  shall  yield  no  meat ; 
the  flock  shall  be  cut  off  from  the  fold,  and  there 
shall  be  no  herd  in  the  stalls  :  yet  I  will  rejoice 
in  the  Lord,  I  will  joy  in  the  God  of  my  salva- 
tion." 

In  the  death  of  Voltaire  we  have  a  scene  in  per- 
fect keeping  with  those  sentiments  of  his  which 
we  have  quoted,  well-fitted  to  show  that  even  in 
this  life  God  makes  felt,  in  flagrant  cases,  the  re- 
tributions of  the  future.  The  Abbe  Baruel  wrote 
soon  after  Voltaire's  death  an  account  of  his  last 
moments  —  an  account  which  it  was  easy  to  dis- 
prove on  the  spot,  if  it  had  been  capable  of  dis- 
proof. The  Abbe  says,  "  Voltaire's  danger  in- 
creasing, he  wrote  thus  to  the  Abbe  Gauthier  :  — 
'  You  had  promised  to  come  and  hear  me.  I  en- 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  19 

treat  you  to  take  the  trouble  of  calling  as  soon 
as  possible.  VOLTAIRE,  Paris,  Feb.  26,  1778.'  A 
few  days  after,  he  wrote  the  following  declaration 
in  the  presence  of  the  same  Abbe  Gauthier,  the 
Abbe  Miguel,  and  the  Marquis  de  Villeveille, 
copied  from  the  minutes  deposited  with  M.  Monier, 
public  notary  at  Paris :  — 

"  *  I,  the  underwritten,  declare,  that  for  these 
four  days  past,  having  been  afflicted  with  vomiting 
of  blood  at  the  age  of  eighty-four,  and  not  having 
been  able  to  drag  myself  to  the  church,  the  Kev. 
the  Eector  of  St.  Sulpice  having  been  pleased  to 
add  to  his  good  works  that  of  sending  me  the 
Abbe  Gauthier,  a  priest,  I  confessed  to  him,  and 
if  it  pleases  God  to  dispose  of  me,  I  die  in  the 
holy  Catholic  Church,  in  which  I  was  born,  hoping 
that  the  Divine  mercy  will  deign  to  pardon  all 
my  faults.  If  ever  I  have  scandalized  the  Church, 
I  ask  pardon  of  God  and  the  Church.  VOLTAIRE, 
March  2,  1778.' 

"  By  the  permission  of  Voltaire  this  declara- 
tion was  carried  to  the  Eector  of  St.  Sulpice,  and 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  to  know  if  it  would 
be  accepted  as  sufficient.  But  when  the  Abbe 
Gauthier  returned,  he  was  refused  admittance. 
D'Alembert,  Diderot,  and  others  remained  with 
him,  and  suffered  no  one.  to  approach  him.  To 
these  he  often  cried,  '  Begone !  it  is  you  who  have 
brought  me  to  my  present  condition.'  He  com- 
plained that  he  was  abandoned  by  God  and  man, 
and  frequently  he  would  cry  out,  <O  Christ,  O 


20  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

Jesus  Christ  !J  M.  Trencher,  his  physician,  with- 
drew in  terror,  declaring  that  his  death-bed  was 
awful,  and  that  the  furies  of  Orestes  could  give 
but  a  faint  idea  of  those  of  Voltaire.  The  Mar- 
shal de  Eichelieu  also  fled,  unable  to  stand  the 
terrible  scene." 

Bishop  Wilson  states,  that  "  the  nurse  who  at- 
tended Voltaire,  being  many  years  afterwards  re- 
quested to  wait  on  a  sick  Protestant,  refused,  till 
she  was  assured  he  was  not  a  philosopher ;  de- 
claring she  would  on  no  account  incur  the  danger 
of  witnessing  such  a  scene  as  she  had  been  com- 
pelled to  do  at  the  death  of  Voltaire." 

D'Alembert  shrunk  from  his  creed  at  death. 
Condorcet  writes,  "Had  I  not  been  there,  he  would 
have  flinched  too." 

It  is  thus  that  God  manifests  his  existence,  ho- 
liness, power,  and  providence,  in  individual  as  in 
national  experience ;  interposing  often  enough  to 
teach  us  He  is  alike  in  history  and  in  the  world, 
and  witness  to  all  the  occurrences  of  both,  and  yet 
He  is  seen  and  felt  so  seldom  in  order  perhaps  to 
lead  us  to  long  for  that  period  when  all  wrongs 
shall  be  righted,  all  errors  scattered,  and  righte- 
ousness flourish  by  the  waters  of  life. 

But  these  men  and  others  of  similar  views,  had 
no  central  column,  fixed  and  immovable,  against 
which  to  lean,  and  feel  secure  amid  the  social 
and  moral  convulsions  of  the  world.  They  had  no 
standing-place  above  the  tide-mark,  from  which 
they  might  look  on  the  waves,  composed  and  at 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  21 

peace.  To  them  the  world  had  no  plan  —  the 
centuries  no  mission :  and  the  existence  of  the 
creature  and  the  being  of  the  heavens,  air  and 
earth,  and  the  rise  and  fall  of  kingdoms,  were  to 
them  mere  fortuitous  accidents.  They  staggered 
amid  the  chaos  in  which  their  skepticism  had 
placed  them.  They  trembled  in  the  darkness 
which  their  creed,  or  rather  no  creed,  created. 
They  felt  the  misery  and  bitterness  of  their  in- 
tense solitariness,  and  therefore  they  deprecated 
their  existence  as  a  calamity,  and  deplored  crea- 
tion as  a  curse.  They  had  souls  too  great  for 
anything  on  earth  to  satisfy,  and  they  knew  of 
no  God  above  the  earth  from  whose  fullness  they 
could  fill  them.  Hence  the  very  greatness  of  the 
atheist's  soul  by  nature  is  his  curse,  while  atheism 
is  his  creed  by  preference,  or  prejudice,  or  passion. 

To  such  minds  all  history  is  but  the  ceaseless 
flux  and  reflux  of  disconnected  facts  —  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  accidents  —  a  chaos  of  intermingling 
and  conflicting  occurrences  without  polarity,  har- 
mony, or  design.  A  historian's  duty,  according 
to  this  theory,  is  to  write  a  dry  chronicle,  to  sum 
up  the  centuries,  and  leave  the  skeletons  and 
mummies  of  departed  ages  for  the  admiration  or 
dissection  of  future  inquirers. 

Others,  dissatisfied  with  so  cold  and  bare  a  re- 
cital of  disjointed  facts,  have  cast  their  eye  over 
them  from  Olympus,  and  made  history  musical  by 
song,  if  they  could  not  make  it  cohere  by  an  all- 
pervading  and  percolating  element,  such  as  that 


22  GOD   IN   HISTORY. 

which  we  have  called  God  in  history.  In  their 
hands,  events  have  turned  up  their  most  heautiful 
phases  ;  and  facts  their  sunniest  sides ;  and  the 
rush  of  nations,  and  the  roar  of  the  wheels  of  war, 
and  the  cataracts  of  revolution  and  political  con- 
vulsion, have  come  down  to  us  in  their  records 
truly  musical,  as  sounds  ring  sweetest  in  their 
echoes.  This  is  "better  far  than  the  atheistic 
treatment  of  history.  There  is  in  it  a  sensuous, 
if  not  a  spiritual  life ;  if  there  he  no  true  life  in 
it,  death  is  concealed.  All  ancient  poetry,  so  rich 
and  heautiful,  and  thoughtful,  was  man's  effort  to 
gild  hi?  misery —  to  cast  a  couleur  de  rose  over  his 
circumstances  —  to  conceal  the  death  that  under- 
lay all  things  hy  the  drapery  and  trappings  and 
flowers  that  make  many  forget  it. 

Others  have  interspersed  with  the  facts  of  their 
history  nohle  reflections  —  soher  analyses — great 
political  truths  —  moral  inferences ;  and  these 
have  heen  regarded  as  safe,  respectahle,  and  right- 
minded  writers.  Yet  the  ahsence  or  studied  omis- 
sion of  all  idea  of  God  is  oft  as  detrimental,  he- 
cause  less  easily  detected,  than  avowed  hostility. 
History  without  God  is  only  second  to  history 
against  God. 

There  is  another  and  a  nobler  class  of  histo- 
rians, who  rise  above  the  region  of  events,  and, 
standing  on  that  sunlit  elevation  on  which  Chris- 
tianity has  placed  them,  see  indeed  all  secondary 
elements  intermingling  and  fermenting  in  the 
valleys  below,  but  also  God's  great  hand  laying 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  23 

its  pressure  upon  each  and  fixing  it  in  its  place, 
and  gently,  yet  irresistibly,  bending  it  to  its  des- 
tiny. Thus  history  becomes  an  apocalypse  of 
God ;  his  voice  is  reflected  from  innumerable 
shrines  in  innumerable  echoes ;  the  rays  of  his 
countenance  glow  in  all  the  events  of  his  Provi- 
dence ;  and  history,  from  presenting  the  aspect 
of  Greenland  —  cold  and  covered  with  perpetual 
snow — assumes  the  appearance  of  a  beautiful 
landscape,  reposing  in  life,  and  joy,  and  worship 
under  the  sun  —  all  its  sights  goodness,  and  all 
its  sounds  harmony. 

We  desire  to  be  of  the  number  of  such  men.  I 
see  the  stage  —  I  hear  the  actors ;  but  behind  the 
curtain  I  perceive  the  drama  of  which  these  ap- 
parently independent  and  spontaneous  actors  are 
but  the  exact  opponents.  I  see  the  battle,  and 
hear  its  terrible  din,  and  admire  its  heroic  com- 
batants ;  but  above  the  fume  and  smoke  I  see  the 
majestic  presence  of  One  who  has  given  each  his 
commission,  his  post  and  instructions,  and  the 
strife  its  close,  and  the  conflicting  tides  of  war 
their  ebb  and  flow,  and  their  "  hitherto  and  no 
farther."  If  I  look  at  the  mere  machinery  in  a 
vast  manufactory —  one  wheel  revolving  with  im- 
measurable speed,  another  slowly  and  solemnly — 
one  in  one  direction,  and  another  in  the  opposite 
—  levers,  and  cranks,  and  axles,  all  apparently  in 
direct  and  designed  antagonism ;  I  can  see  neither 
good  nor  permanence ;  I  prophesy  destruction  — 
annihilation.  But,  guided  by  a  new  light,  I  am 


24  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

able  to  see  both  the  end  and  the  beginning ;  and 
I  discover  that  while  there  is  friction,  atmospheric 
resistance,  and  other  disturbing  forces  —  like  pas- 
sions, prejudices,  and  obstinacies  in  the  histories 
of  nations, — yet  is  there,  sustaining  and  over- 
powering all  the  movements,  one  great  original 
and  central  force  ;  and,  issuing  out  of  all  that  in- 
tricate mechanism,  one  intended  and  grand  result. 

Eivers  have  their  eddies  and  backwater,  which 
appear  to  conceal  their  course,  and  yet  the  main 
current  is  easily  distinguished.  All  history  has 
its  impulse  and  its  course  from  God,  and  all  its 
parts  belong  to  one  great  whole.  Christianity  is 
that  ultimate  thing  on  which  time,  and  tides,  and 
changes,  and  vicissitudes,  and  storms,  and  winds, 
and  conflicts,  and  all  things  continually  wait.  It 
is  no  by-play ;  it  is  no  episode ;  it  is  programme, 
progress,  finale.  "  All  things  were  made  by 
Christ,  and  for  Christ." 

Things  have  stood  in  the  history  of  the  world 
during  few  or  many  years,  according  as  they  have 
been  more  or  less  allied  or  sought  to  be  allied  to 
a  divine  element.  It  is  therefore  truly  and  beau- 
tifully stated  in  "  Guesses  at  Truth:" — 

"  Let  us  cast  our  thoughts  backward.  Of  all 
the  works  of  all  the  men  who  were  living  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago,  what  is  remaining  now?  One 
man  was  then  lord  of  half  the  known  earth.  In 
power  none  could  vie  with  him,  in  the  wisdom  of 
this  world  few.  He  had  sagacious  ministers,  and 
able  generals.  Of  all  his  works,  of  all  theirs,  of 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  25 

all  the  works  of  the  other  princes  and  rulers  in 
those  ages,  what  is  left  now  ?  Here  and  there  a 
name,  and  here  and  there  a  ruin.  Of  the  works 
of  those  who  wielded  a  mightier  weapon  than  the 
sword,  a  weapon  that  the  rust  cannot  eat  away  so 
rapidly,  a  weapon  drawn  from  the  armory  of 
thought,  some  still  live  and  act,  and  are  cherished 
and  revered  by  the  learned.  The  range  of  their 
influence,  however,  is  narrow  ;  it  is  confined  to 
few,  and  even  in  them  mostly  to  a  few  of  their 
meditative,  not  of  their  active  hours.  But  at  the 
same  time  there  issued  from  a  nation,  among  the 
most  despised  of  the  earth,  twelve  poor  men,  with 
no  sword  in  their  hands,  scantily  supplied  with 
the  stores  of  human  learning  or  thought.  They 
went  forth  East,  and  West,  and  North,  and  South, 
into  all  quarters  of  the  world.  They  were  reviled: 
they  were  spit  upon :  they  were  trampled  under 
foot :  every  engine  of  torture,  every  mode  of 
death,  was  employed  to  crush  them.  And  where 
is  their  work  now  ?  It  is  set  as  a  diadem  on  the 
brows  of  the  nations.  Their  voice  sounds  at  this 
day  in  all  parts  of  the  earth.  High  and  low  hear 
it :  kings  on  their  thrones  bow  down  to  it :  senates 
acknowledge  it  as  their  law:  the  poor  and  afflicted 
rejoice  in  it :  and  as  it  has  triumphed  over  all 
those  powers  which  destroy  the  works  of  man, — as, 
instead  of  falling  before  them,  it  has  gone  on  age 
after  age  increasing  in  power  and  in  glory, — so  it 
is  the  only  voice  which  can  triumph  over  death, 
and  turn  the  king  of  terrors  into  an  angel  of  light. 
2 


20  GOD   IN    HISTORY. 

"  Therefore,  even  if  princes  and  statesmen  had 
no  higher  motive  than  the  desire  of  producing 
works  which  are  to  last,  and  to  bear  their  names 
over  the  waves  of  time,  they  should  aim  at  he- 
coming  the  fellow-laborers,  not  of  Tiberius  and 
Sejanus,  nor  even  of  Augustus  and  Agrippa,  but 
of  Peter  and  Paul.  Their  object  should  be,  not 
to  build  monuments  which  crumble  away  and  are 
forgotten,  but  to  work  among  the  builders  of  that 
which  is  truly  the  Eternal  City.  For  so  too  will 
it  be  eighteen  hundred  years  hence,  if  the  world 
lasts  so  long.  Of  the  works  of  our  generals  and 
statesmen,  eminent  as  several  of  them  have  been, 
all  traces  will  have  vanished.  Indeed  of  him  who 
was  the  mightiest  among  them,  all  traces  have 
well-nigh  vanished  already.  For  they  who  deal 
in  death,  are  mostly  given  up  soon  to  death,  they 
and  their  works.  Of  our  poets  and  philosophers 
some  may  still  survive ;  and  many  a  thoughtful 
youth  in  distant  regions  may  still  repair  for  wis- 
dom to  the  fountains  of  Burke  and  Wordsworth. 
But  the  works  which  assuredly  will  live,  and  be 
great  and  glorious,  are  the  works  of  those  poor  un- 
regarded men,  who  have  gone  forth  in  the  spirit  of 
the  twelve  from  Judaea,  whether  to  India,  to  Africa, 
to  Greenland,  or  to  the  isles  in  the  Pacific.  As 
their  names  are  written  in  the  Book  of  Life,  so 
are  their  works  :  and  it  may  be  that  the  noblest 
memorial  of  England  in  those  days  will  be  the 
Christian  empire  of  New-Zealand. 

"  This  is  one  of  the  many  ways  in  which  God 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  27 

casts  down  the  mighty,  and  exalts  the  humble 
and  meek.  Through  His  blessing  there  have 
been  many  men  amongst  us  of  late  years,  whose 
works  will  live  as  long  as  the  world,  and  far 
longer.  But,  as  a  nation,  the  very  heathens  will 
rise  up  in  the  judgment  against  us,  and  condemn 
us.  For  they,  when  they  sent  out  colonies,  deemed 
it  their  first  and  highest  duty  to  hallow  the  new- 
born state  by  consecrating  it  to  their  national 
god ;  and  they  were  studious  to  preserve  the  tie 
of  a  common  religion  and  a  common  worship,  as 
the  most  binding  and  lasting  of  all  ties  between 
the  mother-country  and  its  offspring.  And  so  in- 
herent is  permanency  in  religion,  so  akin  is  it  to 
eternity,  that  the  monuments  even  of  a  false  and 
corrupt  religion  will  outlast  every  other  memorial 
of  its  age  and  people.  With  what  power  does  this 
thought  come  upon  us,  when  standing  amid  the 
temples  of  Psestum  !  All  other  traces  of  the 
people  who  raised  them  have  been  swept  away : 
the  very  materials  of  the  building  that  once  sur- 
rounded them,  have  vanished,  one  knows  not  how 
or  whither :  the  country  about  is  a  wide  waste : 
the  earth  has  become  barren  with  age:  nature 
herself  seems  to  have  grown  old  and  died  there. 
Yet  still  those  mighty  columns  lift  up  their  heads 
towards  heaven,  as  though  they  too  were  *  fash- 
ioned to  endure  the  assault  of  time  with  all  his 
hours :'  and  still  one  gazes  through  them  at  the 
deep  blue  sea  and  sky,  and  at  the  hills  of  Amalfi 
on  the  opposite  coast  of  the  bay.  A  day  spent 


28  GOD   IN   HISTORY. 

among  those  temples  is  never  to  be  forgotten, 
whether  as  a  vision  of  unimagined  sublimity  and 
beauty,  or  as  a  lesson  how  the  glory  of  all  man's 
works  passes  away,  and  nothing  of  them  abides, 
save  that  which  he  gives  to  God.  When  Mary 
anointed  our  Lord's  feet,  the  act  was  a  transient 
one:  it  was  done  for  His  burial:  the  holy  feet 
which  she  anointed,  ceased  soon  after  to  walk  on 
earth.  Yet  He  declared  that,  wheresoever  His 
gospel  was  preached  in  the  whole  world,  that  act 
should  also  be  told  as  a  memorial  of  her.  So  has  it 
ever  been  with  what  has  been  given  to  God,  even 
though  it  were  blindly  and  erringly.  While  all 
other  things  have  perished,  this  has  endured. 

"  The  same  doctrine  is  set  forth  in  the  colossal 
hieroglyphics  of  Girgenti  and  Selinus.  At  Athens 
too  what  are  the  buildings  which  two  thousand 
years  of  slavery  have  failed  to  crush  ?  The  tem- 
ple of  Theseus,  and  the  Parthenon.  Man,  when 
working  for  himself,  has  ever  felt  that  so  perish- 
able a  creature  may  well  be  content  with  a  perish- 
able shell.  On  the  other  hand,  when  he  is  work- 
ing for  those  whom  his  belief  has  enthroned  in 
the  heavens,  he  strives  to  make  his  works  worthy 
of  them,  not  only  in  grandeur  and  in  beauty,  but 
also  in  their  imperishable,  indestructible  massive- 
ness  and  strength.  Moreover,  time  himself  seems 
almost  to  shrink  from  an  act  of  sacrilege ;  and 
nature  ever  loves  to  beautify  the  ruined  house  of 
God. 

"  It  is  not  however  by  the  heathens  alone  that 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  29 

the  propagation  of  their  religion  in  their  colonies 
has  been  deemed  a  duty.  Christendom  in  former 
days  was  actuated  by  a  like  principle.  In  the 
joy  excited  by  the  discovery  of  America,  one  main 
element  was,  that  a  new  province  would  thereby 
be  won  for  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  This  feeling 
is  expressed  in  the  old  patents  for  our  Colonies : 
for  instance,  in  that  for  the  plantation  of  Vir- 
ginia, James  the  First  declares  his  approval  of 
'  so  noble  a  work,  which  may  by  the  providence  of 
Almighty  God  hereafter  tend  to  the  glory  of  His 
Divine  Majesty,  in  propagating  the  Christian  re- 
ligion to  such  people  as  yet  live  in  darkness  and 
miserable  ignorance  of  the  true  knowledge  and 
worship  of  God.'  For  nations,  as  well  as  indi- 
viduals, it  might  often  be  wished,  that  the  child 
were  indeed  '  father  of  the  man.' ' 

Do  not  all  these  facts,  analogies,  and  results, 
and  they  might  be  extended  and  multiplied,  teach 
us  that  the  finger  of  God  is  at  the  rise,  and  the 
glory  of  God  in  the  consummation  of  history  ? 
that  the  disturbing  forces  put  forth  or  thrown  in 
by  a  Pilate — a  Herod — a  Nero — a  Mohammed 
— a  Napoleon — a  revolution  in  Paris — an  insur- 
rection in  Vienna  —  a  rebel's  foolish  attempt  in 
Ireland,  or  a  chartist's  insane  pike-flourish  in  the 
streets  of  London,  are  all  overborne  and  annihi- 
lated in  the  mighty  current  of  mighty  power  that 
comes  down  from  the  throne  of  the  Deity,  and, 
rushing  into  all  facts — all  events; — all  minds — 
guides,  overrules,  and  carries  each  and  all  up  to 


30  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

the  throne  again,  there  to  deposit  its  tribute  of 
glory  to  God  and  good  to  the  universe?  Shall 
Alexander  the  Great  seek  his  own  origin  only  in 
Divinity — shall  Bonaparte  regard  himself  as  the 
man  of  destiny — and  shall  we  fail  to  see  in  the 
history  of  these,  and  greater  than  these,  the  pre- 
sence of  God  ? 

True,  "  He  is  a  God  that  hides  himself."  It 
is  the  anointed  eye  alone  that  most  clearly  sees 
Him.  But  true  men  will  not  fail  to  catch  gleams 
of  his  glory  as  He  passeth  by.  Shall  we  own  that 
a  Divine  hand  gave  their  impulse,  and  their  path, 
and  existence  to  those  vast  orbs  that  burn  per- 
petually in  the  firmament  like  altar-candles  be- 
fore the  throne  ;  and  can  we  doubt  that  the  same 
hand  launched  into  history  such  depositaries  of 
yet  intenser  power  as  the  heroes,  and  captains, 
and  kings,  and  master-spirits  of  the  earth  ? 

Von  Miiller  writes  :  "  The  gospel  is  the  fulfill- 
ment of  all  hopes,  the  perfection  of  all  philosophy, 
the  interpretation  of  all  revelations,  the  key  to  all 
the  seeming  contradictions  of  the  physical  and 
moral  world.  Since  I  have  known  the  Saviour 
everything  is  clear." 

Before  any  great  fact  or  law  in  the  material 
world  can  be  turned  to  practical  account,  a  Divine 
impulse  must  light  upon  the  souls  of  them  in 
whose  generation  that  law  or  fact  becomes  visi- 
ble. Gunpowder  was  known  to  the  Chinese  for 
centuries  before  it  was  used  in  war.  The  sword 
is  a  piece  of  shining  steel,  and  no  more,  till 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  31 

the  brave  heart  see  it  and  the  strong  hand  seize 
it. 

"  God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh."  God  is 
manifest  in  providence.  God  is  in  history  —  not 
in  its  long  chapters  and  absent  from  its  short  — 
not  in  stirring  and  electric  revolutions  only ;  but 
in  its  tiny  turnings,  its  microscopic  incidents — in 
the  fall  of  an  apple  before  the  eye  of  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  —  in  the  twitching  of  a  frog's  nerve  on 
the  iron  spit  in  the  hand  of  Galvani —  in  the  light 
of  its  lowly  firesides,  and  in  the  blaze  of  Alexan- 
dria, of  Ephesus,  and  Constantinople. 

History  is  very  much  like  a  river ;  at  times  it 
nows  onwards — broad,  beautiful,  and  placid,  and 
traced  by  the  rich  vegetation  and  the  budding 
seeds  of  future  savannahs  on  its  banks.  At  other 
places  it  is  broken  up  into  falls,  and  linns,  and 
cataracts,  the  roar  of  which  deadens  all  the  sounds 
of  nature,  while  the  spray  darkens  the  very  splen- 
dor of  noon.  In  the  former,  we  have  statuaries, 
and  painters,  and  poets,  and  scientific  men,  and 
literary  men.  In  the  latter,  we  have  the  Hanni- 
bals,  the  Caesars,  the  Napoleons,  the  Kobespierres 
of  the  world.  Ordinary  minds  see  no  evidence  of 
God  in  the  one,  however  much  they  may  recognize 
it  in  the  other.  Yet  may  there  be  as  much  of  the 
active  energy  and  guiding  wisdom  of  Deity  in 
the  by-paths  of  individual  and  sequestered  life, 
as  on  the  high  roads  along  which  nations  march 
to  greatness,  armed  battalions  to  victory,  or 
mighty  statesmen  to  enduring  fame.  The  same 


32  GOD   IN   HISTORY. 

rainbow  that  is  hung  in  the  heights  of  heaven  is 
formed  by  the  same  sun  with  as  great  beauty  and 
perfection  in  the  dew-drop  dancing  on  the  rose- 
leaf.  The  most  noisy  forces  are  not  the  most 
powerful  or  expressive.  Thunder  and  lightning 
are  very  powerful ;  and  yet  gravitation,  which  has 
no  speech,  and  whose  voice  is  not  heard,  is  far 
more  so.  Earthquakes  that  explode  the  crust  of 
the  earth  into  fragments  are  powerful ;  but  vastly 
more  powerful  still  is  the  silent  and  swifter  light 
that  draws  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  flower, 
and  fruit,  and  tree,  and  yet  falls  softer  than  snow- 
flake  on  an  infant's  eye-lid. 

A  revolution  is  the  explosion  of  the  earthquake, 
or  of  the  volcano  that  startles  the  wide  world  and 
dazzles  the  vulgar  eye,  and  forces  common  minds 
to  see  God  in  it.  A  reformation  is  the  silent  pro- 
gress of  the  light  that  kindles  first  the  mountain- 
tops,  and  "  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  per- 
fect day.'7  Can  we  doubt  that  if  God  speaks  in 
the  thunder  of  the  one,  He  rides  no  less  glorious- 
ly on  the  bright  beams  of  the  other  ?  He  directs 
the  hurricane,  and  pilots  the  frail  bubble  that 
dances  on  the  wave.  We  are  satisfied,  on  its  high- 
est evidence,  that  the  facts  of  history  are  not  dry, 
dead  things,  stuck  round  the  earth  ;  but  the  man- 
tles of  Divine  prophecies  —  the  rebound  below  of 
the  touch  of  Deity  above  —  the  oracles  of  his  pro- 
vidential will  —  the  conductors  of  the  lightnings 
of  the  skies  as  they  make  their  transit  from  eter- 
nity to  eternity.  The  clear  eye  can  see,  running 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  33 

through  all,  indestructible  affinities  by  which  they 
cohere,  and  on  all  a  great  family  likeness,  and 
that  the  likeness  of  Divinity. 

Where  God  is,  often  the  carnal  eye  is  the  last 
to  see  him ;  and  where  he  is  not,  save  in  judgment 
and  wrath,  the  same  eye  thinks  it  sees  him.  The 
vulgar  eye  cannot  see  the  footprints  of  Deity 
where  they  are  most  distinct  and  beautiful,  and 
even  the  chastened,  purged,  and  experienced  eye 
frequently  prophesies  falsely.  A  tender  babe  is 
born  in  Corsica  —  lovely,  gentle,  full  of  promise 
of  good ; — it  is  Napoleon,  the  scourge  of  nations. 
A  seeming  malefactor  dies  upon  a  tree,  and  the 
people  shout  for  joy  as  if  a  curse  were  swept  from 
the  earth  —  and  it  is  the  Son  of  God.  To  quote 
the  words  of  a  true  poet,  "  If  pestilence  stalk 
through  the  land,  ye  say  this  is  God's  doing :  is  it 
not  also  his  doing  when  an  insect  creepeth  on  a 
rose-bud  ?  If  an  avalanche  roll  from  its  Alp,  ye 
tremble  at  the  will  of  Providence :  is  not  that 
will  concerned  when  the  sear  leaves  fall  from  the 
poplar  ?" 

Those  discoveries  on  which  men  have  appa- 
rently stumbled,  and  which  have  given  new  im- 
pulses to  civilization,  knowledge,  religion,  were 
not  accidents,  the  generation  of  material  things, 
but  Divine  interpositions — -footprints  of  God  in 
history.  Archdeacon  Hare  has  thus  graphically 
illustrated  this  idea: — 

"  Another  form  of  the  same  Materialism,  which 
cannot  comprehend  or  conceive  anything  except  as 

90 


34  GOD  IN    HISTORY. 

the  product  of  some  external  cause,  is  the  spirit, 
so  general  in  these  times,  which  attaches  an  inor- 
dinate importance  to  mechanical  inventions,  and 
accounts  them  the  great  agents  in  the  history  of 
mankind.     It  is  a  common  opinion  with   these 
exoteric  philosophers,  that  the  invention  of  print- 
ing was  the  chief  cause  of  the  Keformation,  that 
the  invention  of  the  compass  brought  about  the 
discovery  of  America,  and  that  the  vast  changes 
in  the  military  and  political  state  of  Europe  since 
the  middle  ages  have  been  wrought  by  the  in- 
vention of  gunpowder.     It  would  be   almost   as 
rational  to  say  that  the  cock's  crowing  makes  the 
sun  rise.     Bacon  indeed,  I  may  be  reminded,  seems 
to  favor  this  notion,  where,  at  the  end  of  the  First 
Book  of  HieJWbvum  Organum,lcie  speaks  of  the  power, 
and  dignity,  and  efficacy  of  inventions.     However, 
not  to  speak  of  the  curious  indication  of  a  belief 
in  astrology,  it  must  be  remembered  that  Bacon's 
express  purpose  in  this  passage  is  to  assert  the 
dignity  of  inventions,  that  is,  not  of  the  natural, 
material  objects  in  themselves,  but  of  those  ob- 
jects transformed  and  fashioned  anew  by  the  mind 
of  man,  to  serve  the  great  interests  of  mankind. 
The  difference  between  civilized  and  savage  life, 
he  had  just  said,  "  non  solum,  non  coelum,  non 
corpora,  sed  artes  prsestant."     In  other  words,  the 
difference  lies,  not  in  any  material  objects  them- 
selves, but  in  the  intelligence,  the  mind,  that  em- 
ploys them  for  its  own  ends.     These  very  inven- 
tions had  existed,  the  greatest  of  them  for  many 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  35 

centuries,  in  China,  without  producing  any  like 
result.  Why  ?  Because  the  utility  of  an  inven- 
tion depends  on  our  making  use  of  it.  There  is 
no  power,  none  at  least  for  good,  in  any  instru- 
ment or  weapon,  except  so  far  as  there  is  power 
in  him  who  wields  it :  nor  does  the  sword  guide 
and  move  the  hand,  but  the  hand  the  sword.  Nay, 
it  is  the  hand  that  fashions  the  sword.  The  means 
and  instruments,  as  we  see  in  China,  may  lie  dor- 
mant and  ineffective  for  centuries.  But  when 
man's  spirit  is  once  awake,  when  his  heart  is 
alert,  when  his  mind  is  astir,  he  will  always  dis- 
cover the  means  he  wants,  or  make  them.  Here 
also  is  the  saying  fulfilled,  that  they  who  seek 
'will  find. 

"  Or  we  may  look  at  the  matter  in  another 
light.  We  may  conceive  that,  whenever  any  of  the 
great  changes  ordained  by  God's  Providence  in  the 
destinies  of  mankind  are  about  to  take  place,  the 
means  requisite  for  the  effecting  of  those  changes 
arc  likewise  prepared  by  the  same  Providence. 
Niebuhr  applied  this  to  lesser  things.  He  re- 
>peatcdly  expresses  his  conviction  that  the  various 
vicissitudes  by  which  learning  has  been  promoted, 
are  under  the  control  of  an  overruling  Providence ; 
and  he  has  more  than  once  spoken  of  the  recent 
discoveries,  by  which  so  many  remains  of  anti- 
quity have  been  brought  to  light,  as  providential 
dispensations  for  the  increase  of  our  knowledge  of 
God's  works,  and  of  His  creatures.  His  convic- 
tion was,  that,  though  we  are  to  learn  in  the 


36  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

sweat  of  our  brow,  and  though  nothing  good  can 
be  learned  without  labor,  yet  here  also  everything 
is  so  ordered,  that  the  means  of  knowing  what- 
ever is  needful  and  desirable  may  be  discovered, 
if  man  will  only  be  diligent  in  cultivating  and 
making  the  most  of  what  has  already  been  be- 
stowed on  him.  He  held,  that  to  him  who  has 
will  be  given, —  that  not  only  will  he  be  enabled 
to  make  increase  of  the  talents  he  has  received, 
but  that  he  is  sure  to  find  others  in  his  path. 
This  way  of  thinking  has  been  reproved  as  pro- 
fane, by  those  who  yet  would  perhaps  deem  it  im- 
pious if  a  man,  when  he  cut  his  finger,  or  caught 
a  cold,  did  not  recognize  a  visitation  of  Providence 
in  such  accidents.  Now  why  is  this  ?  In  all 
other  things  we  maintain  that  man's  labor  is  of 
no  avail,  unless  God  vouchsafes  to  bless  it ;  that, 
without  God's  blessing,  in  vain  will  the  husband- 
man sow,  in  vain  will  the  merchant  send  his  ships 
abroad,  in  vain  will  the  physician  prescribe  his 
remedies.  Why  then  do  we  outlaw  knowledge? 
Why  do  we  declare  that  the  exercise  of  our  intel- 
lectual powers  is  altogether  alien  from  God? 
Why  do  we  exclude  them,  not  only  from  the  sanc- 
tuary, but  even  from  the  outer  court  of  the  tem- 
ple? Why  do  we  deny  that  poets  and  philoso- 
phers, scholars  and  men  of  science,  can  serve  God, 
each  in  his  calling,  as  well  as  bakers  and  butchers, 
as  well  as  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  ? 
"  It  is  true,  there  is  often  an  upstart  pride  in 
the  understanding ;  and  we  are  still  prone  to  fancy 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  37 

that  knowledge  of  itself  will  make  us  as  gods. 
Though  so  large  a  part  of  our  knowledge  is  de- 
rivative, from  the  teaching  either  of  other  men  or 
of  things,  and  though  so  small  a  tittle  of  it  can 
alone  he  justly  claimed  hy  each  man  as  his  own, 
we  are  apt  to  forget  this,  and  to  regard  it  as  all 
our  own,  as  sprung,  like  Minerva,  full-grown  out 
of  our  own  heads ;  for  this,  among  other  reasons, 
that,  when  we  are  pouring  it  forth,  in  whatsoever 
manner,  its  original  sources  are  out  of  sight ;  nor 
does  anything  remind  us  of  the  numberless  tribu- 
taries hy  which  it  has  been  swelled.  This  tendency 
of  knowledge,  however,  to  look  upon  itself  as  self- 
created  and  independent  of  God  is  much  encour- 
aged by  the  practice  of  the  religious  to  treat  it 
and  speak  of  it  as  such.  Were  we  wise,  we  should 
discern  that  the  intellectual,  the  natural,  and  the 
moral  world  are  three  concentric  spheres  in  God's 
world,  and  that  it  is  a  robbery  of  God  to  cut  off 
any  one  of  them  from  Him,  and  give  it  up  to  the 
prince  of  darkness.  As  we  read  in  *  The  Book  of 
Wisdom/  it  is  God  that  'hath  given  us  certain 
knowledge  of  the  things  that  are,  to  know  how  the 
world  was  made,  and  the  operation  of  the  ele- 
ments ;  the  beginning,  ending,  and  midst  of  the 
times  ;  the  alterations  of  the  turning  of  the  sun, 
and  the  change  of  seasons;  the  circuits  of  years, 
and  the  positions  of  stars ;  the  natures  of  living 
creatures,  and  the  furies  of  wild  beasts ;  the  vio- 
lence of  winds,  and  the  reasonings  of  men.' 

"  Thus  then  does  it  behove  us  to  deem  of  in- 


38  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

ventions,  as  instruments  ordained  for  us,  by  the 
help  of  which  we  are  to  fulfill  God's  manifold  pur- 
poses with  regard  to  the  destinies  of  mankind. 
At  the  fit  time  the  fit  instrument  shows  itself.  If 
it  comes  before  its  time,  it  is  still-born:  man 
knows  not  what  to  do  with  it ;  and  it  wastes  away. 
But  when  the  mind,  and  heart,  and  spirit  of  men 
begin  to  team  with  new  thoughts,  and  feelings, 
and  desires,  they  always  find  the  outward  world 
ready  to  supply  them  with  the  means  requisite  for 
realizing  their  aims.  In  this  manner,  when  the 
idea  of  the  unity  of  mankind  had  become  more 
vivid  and  definite,  —  when  all  the  speculations  of 
history,  and  science,  and  philosophy,  were  bring- 
ing it  out  in  greater  fullness, — when  poetry  was 
becoming  more  and  more  conscious  of  its  office  to 
combine  unity  with  diversity  and  multiplicity,  and 
individuality  with  universality, —  and  when  re- 
ligion was  applying  more  earnestly  to  her  great 
work  of  gathering  all  mankind  into  the  many 
mansions  in  the  one  great  house  of  the  Eternal 
Father, —  at  this  time,  when  men's  hearts  were 
yearning  more  than  ever  before  for  intercourse 
and  communion,  the  means  of  communication  and 
intercourse  have  been  multiplied  marvelously. 
This  is  good,  excellent ;  and  we  may  well  be 
thankful  for  it.  Only  let  us  be  diligent  in  using 
our  new  gifts  for  their  highest,  and  not  merely 
for  meaner  purposes  ;  and  let  us  beware  of  man's 
tendency  to  idolize  the  works  of  his  own  hands. 
The  Greek  poet  exclaimed  with  wonder  at  the  ter- 


GOD«ffN   HISTORY.  39 

rible  ingenuity  of  man,  who  had  yoked  the  horse 
and  the  bull,  and  had  crossed  the  roaring  sea; 
and  still,  though  the  immediate  occasions  of  his 
wonder  would  be  somewhat  changed,  he  would  cry, 
TroAAd  ra  deiva,  ttovdev  dvdp&rcov  deivorepov  Trehei. 
But,  though  a  heathen,  he  kept  clear  of  the  two- 
fold danger  of  worshiping  either  man  or  his 
work.  May  we  do  so  likewise  !  For  there  is  not 
a  whit  to  choose  between  the  worship  of  steam,  and 
that  of  the  meanest  fetich  in  Africa.  Nor  is  the 
worship  of  man  really  nobler  or  wiser. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SACRED  HISTORY  —  THE  FIRST  PROPHECY  —  APOSTASY — FLOOD  — 
BABEL  —  GREEKS,  JEWS,  AND  ROMANS  COMPARED  —  THE  GREAT 
DELIVERER TRIUMPHS  OF  THE  GOSPEL. 

AN  interesting  field  for  illustrating  the  proposition 
before  us,  is  that  of  early  sacred  history.  The 
first  prophecy  was  pronounced  in  Paradise — "  The 
woman's  seed  shall  bruise  the  serpent's  head." 
This  was  Calvary  emerging  from  the  wreck  of 
Eden — a  shadow  thrown  back  on  the  past  that 
betokened  a  bright  sun  and  a  blessed  day;  and  in 
these  words,  as  in  a  most  precious  deposit,  were 
garnered  up  all  the  hopes  of  all  humanity.  God 
interposed  in  every  fall,  and  flow,  and  winding  in 
the  history  of  the  human  race,  to  guard  this  pro- 
phecy, and  guide  it  to  performance.  The  very  in- 
stincts of  self-preservation  now  felt  in  our  nature 


40  GOD   IN   HIS10RY. 

were  planted  there,  lest  man,  weary  of  the  curse, 
should  take  his  own  way  of  escape  from  it,  and 
thus  frustrate  the  word  and  render  void  the  pro- 
mise of  God,  whose  grand  purpose  and  design  it 
is  to  subdue  all  hostile  elements  to  order,  and  to 
erect  out  of  the  ruins  of  ancient  Paradise  a  fairer 
and  more  glorious  Eden,  fragrant  with  amaran- 
thine flowers.  Accordingly,  to  evolve  the  first 
promise  in  the  last  Paradise,  we  see  God  coming 
down  all  but  visibly  into  history,  instituting  sacri- 
fice, walking  with  Enoch  as  with  his  friend,  and 
separating  and  setting  apart  from  the  alienated 
race  one  family  from  which  the  seed  of  the  woman 
was  in  due  time  to  issue. 

When  the  apostasy  of  man  rose  to  its  height, 
and  the  few  who  continued  the  faithful  depositaries 
of  the  first  promise  were  threatened  with  extinc- 
tion, God  came  down  yet  more  visibly  again  into 
history,  and  opened  the  windows  of  heaven  and 
the  fountains  of  the  deep,  and  swept  the  abound- 
ing wickedness  from  the  face  of  the  whole  earth — 
saving  that  faithful  remnant,  amid  the  faithful 
few ;  but  lest  man's  confidence  in  his  great  first 
promise  should  faint,  or  waver,  or  fail,  God  stood 
on  the  highest  pinnacle  of  Ararat,  and  pointing  to 
the  rainbow,  assured  him,  that  while  it  spanned 
the  sky  and  girdled  the  earth,  no  such  desolation 
should  overflow  the  world  again.  And  thus,  if  you 
cannot  excavate  the  earth,  and  gather  fossil  re- 
mains of  antediluvian  life,  without  tracing  God's 
footprints  below,  you  cannot  lift  your  eyes  to  the 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  41 

heavens,  and  fail  to  see  God's  smile  spread  over 
the  firmament  above ;  and  thus  the  sky  above  and 
the  earth  below,  like  the  twin  lips  of  an  oracle, 
proclaim  that  God  is  in  history. 

Triumphal  arch  that  fill'st  the  sky, 

When  storms  prepare  to  part, 
I  ask  not  proud  philosophy 

To  teach  me  what  thou  art. 

When  o'er  the  green,  undeluged  earth, 
Heaven's  covenant  thou  didst  shine, 

How  came  the  world's  gray  fathers  forth, 
To  watch  thy  sacred  sign ! 

How  glorious  is  thy  girdle  cast 

O'er  mountain,  tower,  and  town ; 
Or  mirror'd  in  the  ocean  vast, 

A  thousand  fathoms  down  ! 

As  fresh  in  yon  horizon  dark, 

As  young  thy  beauties  seem, 
As  when  the  eagle  from  the  ark 

First  sported  in  thy  beam. 

For,  faithful  to  His  sacred  page,. 

God  still  rebuilds  thy  span ; 
Nor  lets  the  type  grow  pale  with  age, 

That  first  spoke  peace  to  man. 

When,  on  the  ebbing  of  the  flood,  men  de- 
termined to  raise  a  vast  fabric  on  which  they  might 
be  elevated  above  future  floods — thus  disbelieving 
God's  promise;  and  to  make  this  idol-tower  the 
centre  and  hope  of  human  kind,  and  thus  localize 
and  prevent  the  spread  of  the  population  of  the 
earth,  God  poured  confusion  into  their  speech,  and 
by  this  one  act  in  history  arrested  the  progress  of 


42  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

the  iniquitous  structure,  and  necessitated  distinc- 
tion into  nations,  and  thereby  the  dispersion  of 
mankind  to  go  forth  over  all  the  earth,  that  amid 
the  snows  of  Lapland  and  under  African  suns — 
in  all  lands  and  in  all  languages— worship  might 
ascend  as  incense  to  the  throne,  and  all  kindreds 
thus  see  and  adore  God  in  history. 

When  the  study  of  languages  first  began,  and 
the  Sheinitic  and  Indo-European  were  alone  in- 
vestigated, the  primitive  and  parental  character 
of  the  Hebrew  was  unquestioned.  But  new  dis- 
coveries of  countries  and  tribes,  especially  the 
aborigines  of  America,  induced  many  of  the  learn- 
ed to  reject  the  Mosaic  account  as  fabulous,  and 
others  to  pause  amid  the  perplexity  they  felt. 
But,  as  the  study  advanced  in  maturity,  new  af- 
finities between  apparently  totally  distinct  lan- 
guages were  detected,  and  ultimately  ethnogra- 
phers were  led  to  the  independent  conclusion, 
which  literally  confirms  the  record  of  the  confusion 
of  tongues  at  Babel,  that  "  all  languages,"  in 
Dr.  Wiseman's  words,  "  were  originally  united  in 
one,  and  that  the  separation  between  them  must 
have  been  occasioued  by  some  violent,  unusual,  and 
active  force,  sufficient  to  account  at  once  for  the  re- 
semblances and  the  differences."  In  the  list  of 
those  who  have  come  to  this  conclusion  are  skeptics, 
rationalists,  and  Christians — Herder,  Klaproth, 
Schlegel,  Humboldt,  and  Niebuhr.  God  thus 
leads  men,  as  history  rolls  on,  to  facts  and  dis- 
coveries, which  guide  them,  or  rather  us,  to  his 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  43 

word.  God,  in  providential  history,  thus  kindles 
lightj;  which  conduct  to  God  in  his  own  word. 

We  read  subsequently  of  God  speaking  aloud  in 
the  ear  of  history,  and  calling  Abraham,  and  se- 
parating him  and  the  rest  of  the  patriarchs  from 
the  depraved  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  "  raising  up 
the  righteous  man  from  the  East,  calling  him  to 
his  feet,  giving  the  nations  before  him,  making 
him  rule  over  kings — giving  them  as  the  dust  to 
his  sword,  and  as  driven  stubble  to  his  bow." 

In  the  great  and  protracted  age  of  the  patri- 
archs, we  cannot  fail  to  discover  a  provision  for 
perpetuating  religious  truths  when  there  was  no 
written  document ;  and  in  their  insulated  position 
we  see  a  colony  amidst  the  vast  multitude  of 
Sodom,  and  Gomorrah,  and  Canaan,  retained  in 
connection  and  communion  with  heaven,  and 
thereby  competent  to  keep  alive  the  channel  of 
the  promised  seed,  and  to  testify  to  the  world  that 
God  was  still  in  its  history. 

We  afterwards  read  of  still  more  vivid  evi- 
dences of  the  great  fact  we  seek  to  show.  God 
came  down  from  his  throne,  and  dwelt  in  the  bush 
in  Horeb,  scattering  around  on  that  desert  the 
burning  beams  of  the  inapproachable  glory.  He 
next  descended  in  a  chariot  of  fire  on  Sinai,  amid 
thousands  of  angels — the  quaking  hill  and  the 
agitated  earth  re-echoing  the  sound  of  his  foot- 
steps. We  see  Him  also  in  the  blazing  pillar  of 
fire  that  marched  before  the  hosts  of  Israel — the 
deep  sea  attesting  God  in  history,  by  opening  its 


44  GOD   IN   HISTORY. 

bosom  to  make  a  promenade  for  Israel,  and  col- 
lapsing in  its  fury  to  be  a  sepulchre  for  all  the 
hosts  and  chivalry  of  Egypt.  In  the  shortening 
of  human  life — in  the  giving  of  the  law — in  the 
institution  of  burdensome  ceremonials,  sacrifices, 
rites,  oblations — in  the  captivity  of  Babylon,  when 
the  weepers  hung  their  harps  on  the  willows  by 
the  Euphrates — we  see  converging  on  ancient 
Israel  from  above,  around,  below,  an  accumulating 
pressure,  intended  to  lead  them  to  remember  the 
first  promise,  and  pray,  and  sigh,  and  cry  for  a 
deliverer  out  of  Zion — a  Saviour.  Do  we  not  see, 
in  all  these  facts,  design,  contrivance,  consistent 
unity — God  in  history?  It  is  in  this  light  that 
the  apostle  places  the  law  when  he  describes  it  as 
our  schoolmaster  to  bring  us  to  Christ.  Its  pro- 
cess was  that  of  driving  to  Christ  as  an  asylum  or 
shelter  from  its  avenging  power,  not  that  of  draw- 
ing to  him.  One  can  see  this  propulsive  tendency 
in  all  its  ceremonial,  moral,  and  comminatory 
enactments. 

A  very  interesting  inquiry  and  evidence  of  God 
among  the  Gentiles,  even  as  among  the  Jews,  is 
the  anticipatory  rites  and  cries  of  heathendom 
after  a  deliverer,  and  its  firm  hope  that  such  a  de- 
liverer would  come. 

What  is  the  significance  of  sacrifice  in  every 
land  and  along  all  the  centuries  of  time — each 
sacrifice  of  various  degrees  of  costliness  and  so- 
lemnity, according  to  the  guilt  it  was  intended  to 
atone?  That  some  unspent  ray  of  its  revealed 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  45 

origin  may  have  suggested  it,  I  doubt  not ;  but 
nothing  would  have  kept  it  up  and  perpetuated  it, 
but  a  deep  sense  of  danger,  demerit,  and  wrath. 
An  insatiable  thirst  after  emancipation  from 
plagues  over  which  philosophy  had  no  jurisdiction, 
and  human  skill  no  control,  must  have  been  at 
the  bottom  of  it,  and  that  God  whom  they  igno- 
rantly  worshiped  must  have  sustained  this  aching 
dissatisfaction — this  longing  after  immortality — 
this  deep  and  inner  conviction  of  the  necessity  of 
a  propitiation  ere  man  could  feel  peace  and  God 
could  give  mercy.  These  impressions  and  influ- 
ences may  have  been  reflected  and  indirect,  yet  are 
they  proofs  that  God  was  in  the  world,  causing 
them  to  prepare  the  way  for  Him  whose  sacrifice 
would  meet  the  wants  of  humanity,  and  scatter  all 
its  doubts,  and  solve  all  its  difficulties.  Just  on 
the  eve  of  the  advent  of  the  great  Deliverer,  hu- 
manity had  come  to  get  sick  and  weary  of  its 
vain  rites — its  unsatisfactory  sacrifices — and  had 
reached  a  crisis  in  its  experience,  when  it  must 
fall  back  into  the  waste  howling  depths  of  that 
terrible  gulf  out  of  which  it  had  been  toiling  to 
extricate  itself,  or  emerge  into  the  true  light,  and 
learn  what  love  has  provided — "  a  ransom  for 
many." 

In  all  this  God  was  in  no  sense  or  degree  the 
patron  of  superstition,  or  the  author  of  sin ;  and 
yet  by  a  permissive  or  suggestive  Providence  he 
kept  alive  in  man's  soul  a  keen  hunger,  till  the 
day  that  the  living  bread  came  down  from  heaven, 


46  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

and  evoked  from  its  long  silent  depths  piercing 
and  mysterious  cries  for  an  interposition  equal  to 
its  restoration. 

So  far  was  God  in  our  history,  and  much  farther 
was  He  in  it  in  the  exercise  of  forbearance  and 
patience. 

By-and-by  we  see  less  of  the  driving,  and  more 
of  the  attractive  process  in  God's  dealings.  David 
emerging  from  the  sheep-cot,  and  establishing  a 
kingdom,  not  the  least  beautiful  type  of  the  true 
David  or  Beloved ;  —  Solomon's  reign  of  splendor 
and  glory,  to  see  which  Sheba's  and  Seba's  queen 
came  from  afar ;  —  the  erection  of  the  Temple, 
and  the  resting  of  the  glory  between  the  cheru- 
bim, where  it  blazed  so  long,  and  the  Urim  and 
Thummim,  that  Divine  directory,  and  the  blos- 
soming-rod, the  emblem  of  an  enduring  priest- 
hood, and  the  incorruptible  manna  —  are  proofs 
not  only  of  God  being  but  of  God  acting  in  history, 
and  writing  on  its  page  the  continuous  fulfillment 
of  his  ancient  promise.  In  the  long  dark  eve  of 
that  stupendous  fact  —  the  incarnation — we  see 
every  human  element,  under  the  most  favorable 
circumstances,  allowed  to  reach  its  perfection,  in 
order  to  prove  that  no  human  element,  or  pre- 
scription, or  process,  could  restore  mankind  to 
God,  and  happiness  to  mankind.  Occasionally 
men  appeared  in  the  history  of  the  world  before 
the  incarnation,  who  seemed  to  have  caught  some 
impressions  of  the  character  of  the  sons  of  God. 
But  the  all  but  universal  character  of  the  world 


GOD  IN    HISTORY.  47 

before  the  advent  of  Jesus,  is  but  too  faithfully 
delineated  in  the  first  chapter  of  St.  Paul's  Epis- 
tle to  the  Eomans. 

In  Greece,  poetry  and  painting,  and  statuary 
and  philosophy  had  reached  their  perfection.  The 
very  remains  —  the  fragments,  and  all  but  debris 
of  Greek  civilization,  art,  and  literature,  are 
searched  out  above  and  below  the  soil,  and  ad- 
mired and  applauded,  when  found,  as  the  evi- 
dences of  genius  and  taste,  and  artistic  and  aes- 
thetic excellence,  to  which  there  can  be  quoted 
no  modern  parallel.  Nevertheless,  slavery,  sui- 
cide, licentiousness  luxuriated  under  their  reign, 
and  sins  and  abominations  were  publicly  spoken 
of  without  shame,  and  were  practised  without  in- 
curring any  brand  of  public  execration,  which  the 
indirect  light  of  Christianity  has  now  driven  from 
the  language  and  the  lives  of  men.  Humanity 
meanwhile  thirsted  yet  more  for  the  knowledge 
of  that  God,  of  whom  their  greatest  and  wisest 
men  had  the  most  miserable  conceptions.  Greece 
is  a  lasting  evidence  how  far  the  wing  of  unaided 
humanity  can  soar,  and  no  less  how  essential  for 
man  is  a  revelation  from  God.  All  the  senti- 
ments and  expressions  of  feeling  which  have  been 
industriously  collected  by  Grotius,  Wetstein,  and 
others,  from  the  writings  of  the  heathens  prior  to 
the  advent  of  Christ,  are  evidences  of  instincts 
and  deep  yearnings  in  the  heart  of  humanity 
which  God  created,  as  lights  of  a  gray  and  hazy 
dawn,  teaching  us  that  "  far  off  Christ's  coming 


48  GOD   IN   HISTORY. 

shone,"  and  that  God  was  in  the  history  of  heath- 
endom. All  facts  and  events  previous  to  Christ 
were  overruled  or  consecrated  to  introduce  him. 
All  philosophy,  and  literature,  and  poetry,  and 
architecture,  and  painting,  served  to  deepen  man's 
sense  of  the  absence  of  God,  and  so  to  make  him 
seek  after  Him,  if  per  adventure  he  might  find 
Him,  or  to  prepare  men's  hearts  for  the  royal  vis- 
itant, or  to  furnish  us  on  whom  the  .ends  of  the 
centuries  have  come  with  irresistible  evidence  of 
nature's  inability,  of  herself,  to  recover  herself, 
just  as  man,  by  no  strain  on  his  muscles,  can  lift 
himself  from  the  ground. 

As  if  in  contrast  with  this,  the  Jews,  who  knew 
little  of  the  fine  arts  — who  were  an  unscientific 
and  unsesthetic  race  —  cherished  the  sublimest 
thoughts  of  Deity,  and  so  described  the  Eternal, 
that  the  purest  conceptions  of  great  intellects  are 
but  rays  that  have  wandered  from  Palestine.  How 
do  we  explain  this  ?  Only  in  one  way.  The 
Greeks  were  taught  by  man  ;  the  Jews  by  God. 
Yet  the  one  fact  was  as  necessary  as  the  other. 
God  was  in  the  Parthenon  as  truly  as  in  Solomon's 
Temple :  — working  out  the  experiment  in  the 
one,  how  little  man  can  do ;  and  showing  the 
great  truth  in  the  other,  how  gloriously  God  can 
teach. 

The  Eoman  empire,  at  the  eve  of  Christ's  ad- 
vent, had  spread  its  sway  over  almost  all  the 
known  world :  the  laurels  of  the  orefyavoi,  the 
crowns  of  its  Caesars,  were  gathered  from  every 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  49 

land ;  whatever  skillful  policy  or  martial  prowess 
could  do,  Koine  did.  But  numbers,  sick  at  heart, 
waited  still  for  the  Consolation  of  Israel.  The 
inscription  is  legible  on  the  tomb  of  nations, 
"  The  world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God." 

Mr.  Birks  eloquently  observes  :  "  The  storms 
which  rocked  the  cradle  of  Kome,  and  nursed  it 
into  greatness  —  the  wars  of  Carthage,  the  victo- 
ries of  Hannibal,  the  proud  triumphs  of  Scipio 
and  Paulus,  of  Marius  and  Sylla,  of  Pompey  and 
Caesar — the  fall  of  Greece,  and  Syria,  and  Egypt, 
of  Spain,  and  Gaul,  and  Britain,  with  all  the 
fierce  convulsions  of  intestine  strife,  and  the  im- 
perial line  of  Caesar  —  were  all  planned  out  and 
clearly  foreseen  in  the  counsels  of  the  Most  High. 
Where  a  worldly  mind  sees  nothing  but  a  wild 
sea  of  human  passions,  or  the  dark  workings  of 
subtle  policy  and  ambition,  God's  word  reveals  a 
mightier  presence  standing  in  the  midst  of  those 
proud  statesmen  and  warriors,  though  they  knew 
Him  not.  A  flood  of  heaven's  light  streams  down 
upon  the  darkest  page  of  Roman  ambition  and 
crime.  Amid  those  gloomy  scenes  of  triumphant 
injustice,  foul  idolatry,  or  superstitious  pride,  al- 
mighty power  was  there  to  control,  omniscient 
wisdom  to  foresee  and  ordain,  and  love  and  holi- 
ness were  overruling  the  mighty  drama  of  strife 
and  violence  to  accomplish  their  own  hidden  coun- 
sel of  grace  and  redemption  to  a  fallen  world." — 
EirJcs'  Four  Prophetic  Empires,  p.  80. 

At  length  the  great  Deliverer,  for  whom  every 
3 


50  GOD   IN    HISTORY. 

nation  had  searched  and  toiled  to  find  a  substitute 
and  had  failed, —  for  whose  advent  patriarchs, 
and  prophets,  and  priests,  and  kings  had  prepared 
the  way, — whose  path  to  a  cross  was  paved  with 
types,  and  shadows,  and  gorgeous  ceremonies, — 
whose  footfall  had  been  for  four  thousand  years 
the  sweetest  note  in  the  chimes  of  mercy  and  truth 
that  met  together,  and  righteousness  and  peace 
that  kissed  each  other,  —  who  was  set  up  from 
everlasting  as  the  model  after  which  all  shall  be 
fashioned,  and  the  end  to  which  all  times  and 
things  shall  contribute  :  —  this  great  Deliverer 
came,  and  found  only  a  manger  in  the  world  he 
had  made,  and  hostility  instead  of  hospitality  in 
the  hearts  he  sustained  every  minute  by  his  power 
and  came  to  redeem  from  destruction  by  the  shed- 
ding of  his  precious  blood.  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh  was  the  noblest  apocalypse  of  God  in  history. 
The  Christ  is  the  alpha  and  omega  of  my  subject. 
His  experience,  Deception,  life,  and  death,  are  illu- 
minated foci,  revealing,  in  unearthly  glories,  God 
in  history.  The  malignity  of  Herod,  the  hypo- 
crisy of  Pilate,  the  inveterate  hatred  of  the  Phari- 
sees, the  haughty  scorn  of  the  Sadducees,  Eoman 
laws  and  Jewish  rites,  the  helplessness  of  women, 
the  vacillation  of  men,  the  shout  of  them  that  re- 
proached Him  —  "  Thou  that  savest  others  save 
thyself,"  and  the  cry  of  human  nature  in  the 
agony  of  its  irrepressible  conviction  — "  Truly 
this  was  the  Son  of  God  ;"  these  and  innumerable 
other  conflicting  and  antagonistic  forces,  coming 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  51 

together  without  preconcert,  pursuing  their  exclu- 
sive ends  without  any  unanimity  of  plan  or  iden- 
tity of  purpose,  and  giving  free  utterance  to  all 
they  felt,  conspire  and  co-operate  to  accomplish 
the  purposes  of  God,  and  to  prove  to  after  ages 
God  in  history.  Discords  thus  evolve  harmony. 
Sin  and  pain  are  thus  ironed  together  like  con- 
victs, and  are  forced  to  do  God's  will.  Enemies 
emit  hosannas,  and  babes  and  sucklings  give 
glory.  The  leech  likes  only  blood,  but  the  phy- 
sician uses  it  for  the  health  of  his  patient;  out 
of  the  corrosive  poison  God  brings  forth  a  precious 
elixir. 

What  a  monument  of  God  in  history  is  Cal- 
vary !  Ignorance  or  wickedness  alone  can  blind 
man's  eyes  to  its  glory. 

Very  beautiful  it  is,  also,  to  see  that  every 
miracle  that  Jesus  did  was  not  a  mere  stroke  of 
power,  but  an  earnest  and  first-fruit  of  the  rescue 
of  man  from,  his  slavery,  and  of  creation  from  its 
curse.  When  he  healed  the  sick,  it  was  a  fore- 
light  of  the  sickless  state.  When  he  raised  the 
dead,  it  was  a  foretoken  of  the  first  resurrection. 
Whatever  man  lost  in  Paradise,  the  Son  of  Man 
regained  in  Gethsemane.  The  wilderness  which 
the  first  Adam  left  as  our  inheritance,  the  second 
Adam  entered,  and  out  of  it  educed  the  outline  of 
Paradise  regained.  His  healing  men's  bodies, 
undoing  the  heavy  burdens,  raising  the  dead,  un- 
stopping^the  ears  of  the  deaf,  was  God  in  history, 
beginning  that  process  which  the  ministry  of  our 


52  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

physicians  labors  to  perpetuate,  and  the  voices  of 
our  clergy  to  circulate,  and  which  shall  end  in  the 
glory  of  that  dawning  age  in  which  there  shall  be 
"  long  hours  "  of  joy  and  "  short  hours  of  toil.7' 
Nature  (natura  from  nascor)  is  still  bringing  to 
the  birth.  She  groans  in  pain,  waiting  to  be  de- 
livered. At  the  millennial  morn  her  joy  will  be 
great  that  the  man-child  is  born. 

Starting  at  the  empty  tomb  of  their  risen  Lord, 
the  first  ambassadors  of  Christianity  went  forth 
to  subdue  the  earth,  with  no  patronage  but  an 
open  world,  and  no  help  but  in  Him  who  had  pro- 
mised to  be  with  them. 

In  the  varied  and  so  far  conflicting  tempera- 
ments of  the  Apostles,  we  see  the  hand  of  God. 
In  Matthew  we  read  the  terse  and  severe  relation 
of  naked  facts,  with  an  allusive  reference  to  the 
Jew  throughout.  In  Luke  we  see  the  elegant 
classic  scholar  —  educated,  refined  in  taste,  and 
versed  in  composition.  In  John  we  see  the  organ 
and  the  illustration  of  love,  in  whose  breast  the 
paternal  character  of  God  had  made  its  deepest 
impression,  whose  pen  appears  to  have  been  dipped 
in  love — who  regarded  the  manifestation  of  Eter- 
nal Love  as  the  lever  that  is  to  lift  the  earth  from 
its  aphelion,  and  replace  it  in  its  ancient  orbit 
under  a  more  glorious  sun  —  whose  last  words 
in  the  little  Church  in  Ephesus  were  "  Love  one 
another."  Peter  is  seen  to  be  headstrong,  bold, 
eloquent,  impetuous  —  ever  the  spokesman  of  the 
rest,  and  ever  mighty  through  God.  Thus,  in  the 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  53 

Acts  iii,  we  find  Peter  and  John  performing  a 
miracle — Peter  the  only  speaker,  and  John  silent 
by  his  side,  as  free  from  envy  or  jealousy  as  he  is 
full  of  love.  The  Jews  took  notice  of  both,  "  that 
they  had  been  with  Jesus  ;"  the  dumb  yet  expres- 
sive countenance  of  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved 
preaching  as  effectually  as  the  eloquent  lips  of 
Peter.  The  look  of  John  reflected  the  lustre  and 
the  love  of  Jesus,  and  the  words  of  Peter  were  the 
echoes  of  the  words  of  Jesus,  and  both,  in  differ- 
ent ways,  were  witnesses  to  his  glory.  In  Paul 
we  discover  a  spirit  of  a  still  distinct  order  —  a 
powerful  reasoner  —  a  hero  in  the  highest  and 
holiest  sense  of  that  word  —  fitted  by  nature  and 
filled  with  grace  to  carry  the  Gospel  to  the  utter- 
most ends  of  the  empire,  and  isles  of  the  sea. 

The  varied  styles  of  these  holy  men,  while  vehi- 
cles of  the  same  precious  testimony,  are  fitted  to 
interest  and  conciliate  every  variety  of  taste ;  and 
thus  while  we  see  God  at  the  commencement  of 
Christianity,  too  glorious  to  be  misapprehended 
by  any  but  the  blind,  we  see  Him  clearly  in  the 
selection  and  consecration  of  so  varied  an  instru- 
mentality, to  be  the  exponents  of  his  mind  in  all 
ages.  These  twelve  stones  are  jasper,  and  sap- 
phire, and  chalcedony,  and  emerald,  and  sardonyx, 
sardine,  chrysolite,  and  beryl,  topaz,  chrysoprasus, 
jacinth,  and  amethyst ;  but  all  are  built  on  one 
foundation,  and  reflect  from  their  various  surfaces, 
"  the  glory  of  God,  even  the  Lamb." 

In  the  earliest  days  of  the  Gospel,  weakness 


54  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

prevailed  against  might,  and  few  against  many, 
and  the  lone  fishers  of  Galilee  against  the  soldiers 
of  Ca3sar.  Humility  overthrew  pride,  and  love 
triumphed  over  hatred ;  and  naked  truth,  the 
unarmed  child,  overcame  the  Macedonian  phalanx, 
and  the  Eoman  legion,  and  Satanic  hosts,  till  the 
Vine  of  Israel  shot  up  and  gracefully  wove  its 
tendrils  around  the  sceptre  and  mingled  them 
with  the  laurels  of  the  Caesars,  and  at  length  the 
hated  religion  of  a  corner  of  the  Eoman  empire 
became  the  faith  of  countless  nations,  and  the 
hope,  and  stay,  and  joy  of  humanity. 

There  is  no  more  conclusive  evidence  of  God's 
presence  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  Christian 
dispensation.  It  gently  and  yet  effectually  trod 
down  prejudice,  and  passion,  and  eloquence,  and 
money,  and  power ;  and  rose  refreshed  hy  tempo- 
rary defeat,  to  gain  eternal  victory.  There  is  no 
proof  of  God  in  history  more  clear  or  conclusive 
than  the  victory  of  unarmed  Christianity  —  the 
march  of  the  insulted,  resisted,  and  denounced 
Gospel,  and  the  present  all-hut  throned  position 
of  the  Bihle,  compared  with  the  past  ail-but  ac- 
complished destruction  of  it. 

Persecution  fanned  its  flames ;  the  sufferings 
of  its  martyrs  convinced  their  murderers,  and 
added  new  disciples  to  the  faith.  The  winds  of 
heaven  wafted  to  distant  lands  the  testimonies  of 
the  saints,  and  the  silent  subterranean  catacombs 
into  which  they  were  crowded  were  inscribed  with 
the  records  of  the  truths  clung  to  in  trial,  and 


GOD  IN    HISTORY.  55 

the  joys  realized  by  the  worshipers  within  them. 
All  forces  helped  Christianity,  all  winds  bore  her 
onward.  Her  records  in  all  lands  are  the  imper- 
ishable evidence  of  God  in  history.  The  carnal 
have  tried  to  burst  the  restraints  of  the  Gospel, 
and  the  fierce  and  violent  to  tear  up  by  the  roots 
that  tree  of  life  whose  shadow  gives  protection 
even  to  them  ;  but,  like  the  banyan  tree,  the  more 
its  upper  boughs  have  been  cut  and  hacked,  the 
wider  and  deeper  the  under  roots  have  spread. 
God  stands  by  it,  though  we  see  Him  not,  and  re- 
strains, with  unseen  but  mighty  hand,  the  fierce 
passions  of  mankind,  and  draws  glory  to  himself 
from  the  remainder,  and  makes  the  first  false 
prophet  and  the  last  false  priest  undesignedly  aid 
the  cause  they  have  studied  to  betray.  I  know 
no  more  eloquent  proof  of  God  in  history  than 
this  —  that  all  the  architects  of  creation  have 
failed  to  build  up  a  lie,  and  all  the  inquisitors  of 
Spain  have  failed  to  burn  down  one  truth.  God 
dies  not  when  his  children  and  confessors  suffer, 
and  truth  is  not  consumed  with  her  martyrs  ;  and 
when  the  iron  hoof  of  infidelity  shall  tread  down 
all  the  churches,  shrines,  and  altars,  and  holy 
places  of  Christianity,  there  shall  be  left  in  every 
Christian's  bosom  the  chancel  of  a  holy  heart, 
which  man  can  neither  make  nor  mar — God's 
first  temple  in  Paradise,  and  God's  last  temple  on 
earth. 


56  GOD  IN  HISTOKY. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PROPHETIC  HISTORY  —  HAM  —  ISHMAEL —  EGYPT,  NINEVEH,  THE 
CHALD2EANS,  THE  JEWS ROMANISM THE  INQUISITION RE- 
SULTS OF  THE  PAPAL  SYSTEM PRESERVATION  OF  THE  SCRIP- 
TURES  LAYARD'S  DISCOVERIES  IN  NINEVEH. 

HAVING  glanced  at  this,  the  main  current  of  evi- 
dence of  God  in  history,  let  us  look  at  some  of  the 
side  streams.  Wherever  there  is  prophecy  or  pro- 
mise in  Scripture,  we  shall  find  God  in  history, 
watching  over  its  perfect  performance.  The  mi- 
nutest characteristics  of  the  Babylonian,  Medo- 
Persian,  Greek,  and  Roman  empires,  were  pictori- 
ally  set  forth  in  Daniel,  long  prior  to  their  cor- 
porate existence  ;  and  the  evidence  of  God  in  his- 
tory is  the  fact  that  Nebuchadnezzar,  Cyrus,  Alex- 
ander, Pompey,  Caesar,  and  Constantino,  all  start 
up  in  brilliant  succession  at  the  moment  indicated 
some  thousand  years  before,  and,  having  done  the 
work  predetermined  of  God,  they  successively  sink 
into  the  darkness,  out  of  which,  like  meteors,  they 
originally  emerged.  God's  sure  word  of  prophecy 
is  the  grand  fluxion,  of  which  the  history  of  nations 
is  the  fluent.  God  is  as  truly  in  the  history  of 
modern  and  ancient  Europe,  as  in  the  forty  years' 
journeying  in  the  wilderness.  A  prophecy  was 
uttered  in  Egypt  by  the  Patriarch  Jacob,  that 
"  the  sceptre  shall  not  depart  from  Judah,  nor  a 
lawgiver  from  between  his  feet  until  Shiloh  come." 
Judah  is  now  literally  annihilated.  There  are  no 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  57 

proofs  of  its  genealogy.  Fifty  years  "before  the 
advent  of  Christ  it  was  depressed  and  ail-but  de- 
stroyed by  the  Eoman  empire — a  few  dim  rays  of 
departing  royalty  flickered  around  the  sceptre  of 
David  at  the  birth  of  Jesus.  In  the  year  12  it 
was  incorporated  with  Syria,  ai\d  made  a  Eoman 
province ;  and  so  the  sceptre  fully  departed  from 
Juclah,  and  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem — so  glorious  in 
its  historic  recollections,  so  guilty  in  its  moral 
character — extinguished  all  the  signs  and  present 
possibilities  of  the  restoration  of  Judah  to  sove- 
reignty. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  go  over  every  pro- 
phecy in  the  Old  Testament  Scripture,  and  point 
to  its  indisputable  fulfillment  as  evidence  of  God 
guiding  or  overruling  all  events,  wills,  passions, 
purposes,  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  designs, 
In  vain  had  Deity  spoken  in  the  oracle,  if  Deity 
had  not  acted  in  the  world.  Prophecy  is  history 
undeveloped,  and  history  is  prophecy  in  full  mani- 
festation, and  it  is  by  the  light  struck  out  in  the 
transition  of  the  one  into  the  other  that  we  see 
God  clearly.  Eead  the  prediction  respecting  HAM, 
that  his  descendants,  the  children  of  Africa,  should 
be  bondsmen  of  bondsmen.  England  nobly  sacri- 
ficed twenty  millions,  in  order  to  wash  her  hands 
of  the  heinous  crime  and  horrible  abominations  of 
slavery,  and  sent  her  cruisers  to  sweep  the  seas  of 
every  craft  that  ventured  to  encourage  the  inhu- 
man traffic.  But  while  God  is  not  the  author  of 

this  sin,  nor  man   irresponsible   for  his  crimes, 
3* 


58  GOD   IN   HISTORY. 

slavery  lias  grown  under  the  attempts  to  extin- 
guish it,  and  shot  up  in  spite  of  the  power  of 
Britain  and  the  piercing  protest  of  outraged  hu- 
manity, the  hour  of  its  extinction  not  having  yet 
come ;  thereby  showing  that  heaven  and  earth 
may  pass  away,  but  that  one  jot  or  tittle  of  God's 
word  cannot  pass  away  till  all  be  fulfilled. 

Of  the  descendants  of  Ishmael,  the  Arabs,  it 
was  written,  some  six  thousand  years  ago,  that 
each  should  "  be  a  wild  man — his  hand  against 
every  man,  and  every  man's  hand  against  him ;" 
and  that  he  should  "  dwell  in  the  presence  of  his 
brethren." 

Gibbon,  the  foe  of  Christianity,  unconsciously 
bears  witness  to  God  in  history,  when  he  states, 
"  the  arms  of  Sesostris,  and  Cyrus,  and  Pompey, 
and  Trajan,  could  never  achieve  the  conquest  of 
Arabia ;"  and  when  he  says,  "  the  Arabs  are  armed 
against  mankind:"  and  at  this  day,  says  Sir 
Kobert  Porter  in  his  travels,  "  The  Arabs  are  still 
a  wild  people,  dwelling  in  the  presence  of  all  their 
brethren,  unsubdued  and  unchangeable — one  of 
those  mysterious  facts  that  establish  the  truth  of 
prophecy ;"  and  we  may  add,  another  evidence  that 
the  God  who  spake  in  prophecy  is  the  God  who 
acts  in  history. 

No  doubt  such  facts,  so  plainly  fulfilling  ancient 
prophecy,  are  not  mere  arbitrary  and  disjointed 
proofs,  either  of  the  truth  which  passed  from  the 
prophet's  lips,  or  of  the  power  which  imprints  its 
doings  on  the  historian's  page.  They  have,  I 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  59 

doubt  not,  great  moral  and  beneficent  issues,  not 
yet  evolved.  The  Arabs  so  live,  not  simply  and 
solely  because  Moses  so  prophesied.  Beyond  this 
they  have  a  part  to  play — a  mission  to  execute, 
and  at  the  appointed  time  it  will  so  be  seen. 

Of  Egypt  it  was  written  upwards  of  two  thousand 
years  ago,  "  Egypt  shall  be  the  basest  of  king- 
doms ;  I  will  make  the  land  waste  by  the  hands 
of  strangers :  there  shall  be  no  more  a  prince  of 
the  land  of  Egypt ;  it  shall  be  the  basest  of  king- 
doms." 

Gibbon,  ignorant  of  the  prophecy,  and  declaim- 
ing against  the  very  existence  of  God,  thus  writes : 
"  Its  constitution  condemns  the  native  to  perpetual 
servitude,  under  the  arbitrary  dominion  of  stran- 
gers and  slaves" 

Volney  writes :  "  Deprived,  twenty-three  centu- 
ries ago,  of  her  natural  proprietors,  she  has  seen 
her  fertile  fields  successively  a  prey  to  the  Per- 
sians, the  Macedonians,  the  Romans,  the  Greeks, 
the  Arabs,  the  Tartars."  "  In  Egypt  there  is  no 
middle  class  ;  a  universal  air  of  misery  is  manifest 
in  all  the  traveler  meets." 

God's  truth  was  in  prophecy,  and  atheists  attest 
God's  presence  in  the  fulfillment :  and  thus  God 
in  history  is  the  echo  of  God's  voice  in  prophecy. 

Of  Nineveh  it  was  prophesied  by  Nahum: 
"  Nineveh  shall  be  like  a  pool  of  water ;"  "  to  be 
devoured  as  stubble  fully  dry ;"  "  the  Lord  will 
make  an  utter  end  of  it."  Diodorus  relates,  "  it 
was  destroyed  partly  by  fire  and  partly  by  water." 


60  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

According  to  Gibbon,  "  the  city,  and  even  the  ruins 
of  the  city,  have  wholly  disappeared." 

Tyre  was  once  the  London  of  the  ancient  world. 
"  It  was,"  says  Volney,  "  the  theatre  of  an  immense 
commerce,  the  nursery  of  arts." 

Upwards  of  two  thousand  years  ago,  God  thus 
spake  of  it  in  prophecy :  "  I  am  against  thee,  O 
Tyrus,  and  will  cause  many  nations  to  come  up 
against  thee,  as  the  sea  causeth  his  wave  to  come 
up.  And  they  shall  destroy  the  walls  of  Tyrus, 
and  break  down  her  towers.  I  will  also  scrape 
her  dust  from  her,  and  make  her  like  the  top  of  a 
rock.  It  shall  be  a  place  for  the  spreading  of  nets 
in  the  midst  of  the  sea." 

The  Chaldseans,  and  finally  the  Greeks  under 
Alexander,  came  up  against  it.  Alexander  form- 
ed a  mound  from  the  mainland,  out  of  the  mate- 
rials of  old  Tyre,  and  literally,  in  the  words  of 
the  prophet,  scraped  off  her  dust,  and  buried  it  in 
the  sea.  There  is  left  scarce  a  ruin  of  Tyre.  A 
rock  is  all  that  remains,  on  which  modern  fisher- 
men now  dry  their  nets.  In  the  words  of  Volney, 
"  It  contains  fifty  or  sixty  families,  who  live  ob- 
scurely on  the  produce  of  their  little  ground,  and 
a  trifling  fishery."  Thus  there  is  seen  in  history 
the  shadow  of  Him  who  inspired  the  prophecy ;  and 
while  his  voice  is  heard  sounding  in  the  one,  his 
hand  is  seen  acting  in  the  other.  I  might  very 
easily  gather  similar  proofs  from  the  state  of 
Idumaea,  Babylon,  Judaea. 

But  one  race  I  cannot  pass  by,  whose  existence 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  61 

is  eloquent  evidence  of  God  in  history.  I  mean 
the  Jews.  The  future  state  of  their  land  is  thus 
described  by  Ezekiel,  vi,  3,  6,  14 :  "In  all  your 
dwelling-places  the  cities  shall  be  laid  waste,  and 
the  high  places  shall  be  desolate ;"  "  Your  altars 
waste  and  laid  desolate  ;"  "  The  land  more  deso- 
late than  the  wilderness." 

Again :  "  I  will  bring  the  worst  of  the  heathen, 
and  they  shall  possess  their  houses,  and  their  holy 
places  shall  be  defiled." 

In  Jeremiah  xix,  8,  it  is  written,  "  I  will  make 
this  city  desolate,  and  a  hissing ;  every  one  that 
passeth  thereby  shall  be  astonished,  and  hiss  be- 
cause of  all  the  plagues  thereof." 

In  Micah  it  is  prophesied,  "  I  will  make  Samaria 
as  a  heap  of  the  field  :  I  will  pour  down  the  stones 
thereof  into  the  valley,  and  I  will  discover  the 
foundations  thereof." 

The  author  of  the  "  Holy  Land  Eestored,"  a 
work  of  great  interest,  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hollings- 
worth,  thus  describes  the  fulfillment  of  these  and 
innumerable  parallel  predictions  : — 

"  The  cities  are  ashes  of  the  dead.  Tombs  cover 
the  land.  The  inhabitants  are  scattered  from 
each  other,  and  live  in  single  hundreds,  surrounded 
by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  monuments,  each 
witnessing  to  the  populousness  of  former  genera- 
tions. The  soil  is  secretly  pregnant  with  a  hun- 
dred teeming  harvests,  yet  there  is  no  one  to  reap 
them,  none  to  sow.  Birds  of  prey  soar  in  silent 
attention  over  these  places.  The  whole  country 


62  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

seems  abandoned  to  the  robber  Arabs.  Human 
life  is  insecure  and  uncertain.  No  one  who  sows 
knows  who  will  reap  his  harvest,  and  those  who 
hastily  gather  it  with  their  weapons  by  their  side, 
hurry  it  home  like  men  who  are  stealing  from  a 
land  which  is  not  their  own.  The  traveler  watches 
every  distant  cloud  of  dust,  lest  it  should  reveal  a 
glittering  gun-barrel,  or  the  spears  of  a  robber 
horde.  In  the  heart  of  the  best  portion  of  the 
world,  at  the  head  of  the  most  renowned  sea,  with 
ports  that  were  originally  the  mistresses  of  the 
most  lucrative  commerce  between  East  and  West, 
it  is  inhabited  only  by  necessity,  and  man  snatches 
a  hurried  and  feverish  existence  without  comfort 
or  settled  security  for  its  plains  and  mountains. 
The  desolation  is  almost  complete.  The  popula- 
tion goes  on  diminishing.  The  rivers  appear  to 
have  all  diminished  in  volume  and  breadth.  The 
springs  which  in  ancient  times  flowed  and  wept 
for  very  joy,  in  every  ravine  and  on  the  sides  of 
all  the  hills,  are  parched  up  and  wasted — their 
rocky  urns  are  filled  with  dust.  Yet  rains  are 
abundant.  '  The  whole  land  thereof  is  brimstone 
and  salt, — and  burning,  it  is  not  sown,  nor  beareth, 
nor  any  grass  groweth  therein,  like  the  overthrow 
of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  which  the  Lord  over- 
threw in  his  anger  and  in  his  wrath.7  Deut.  xxix,  23. 
When  from  Nebo  and  its  hill  Pisgah,  Moses  be- 
held that  goodly  land,  how  marvelous — is  it  not — 
that  he  should  have  been  able  just  before  to  pen 
these  sentences  as  features  of  its  present  altered 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  63 

appearance  ?  Who  could  thus  obliterate  its  loveli- 
ness but  God  ?  Who  but  God  could  have  foretold 
its  barrenness  now  ?" 

Of  them  God  thus  spake  hundreds  of  years  be- 
fore the  destruction  of  Jerusalem :  "  I  will  scatter 
you  among  the  heathen :"  "  Thou  shalt  become 
an  astonishment,  a  proverb,  and  a  byword,  among 
all  nations,  whither  the  Lord  shall  lead  thee:" 
"  Among  these  nations  shalt  thou  find  no  ease, 
neither  shall  the  sole  of  thy  foot  have  rest." 

Jerusalem  has  been  "  trodden  under  foot,"  liter- 
ally and  terribly,  till  now,  by  the  iron  heels  of 
western  Christians,  who  deluged  it  with  blood,  by 
the  hoofs  of  Arab  and  Moslem  horsemen,  and  by 
the  bare  feet  of  Greek,  and  Eoman,  and  Armenian 
monks.  Each  sect  spared  its  rival  in  order  %to 
crush  the  Jew.  To  plunder  and  maltreat  the  Jew 
was  regarded  as  the  expression  of  a  piety  singu- 
larly acceptable  to  God.  No  experience  of  man 
can  explain  this.  The  Jew  is  a  living  mystery, 
which  prophecy  alone  clears  up. 

Many  other  predictions,  intimate  the  destinies 
of  this  mysterious  race  till  Christ  come.  All  na- 
tions have  homes  in  Jerusalem, — the  Jew  has 
none.  They  have  been  sifted  through  all  nations, 
and  have  taken  root  in  none.  They  are  the  sub- 
jects of  every  dynasty — the  victims  of  every 
tyranny — the  scoff  of  the  infidel — the  scorn  of 
the  great.  From  the  Thames  to  the  Tiber,  and 
from  the  Tiber  to  the  Ganges,  and  from  the  Ganges 
to  the  Missouri — from  "  Greenland's  icy  moun- 


64  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

tains  to  India's  coral  strand"  —  they  are  found 
insulated  from  the  sympathies  of  all  men,  indi- 
cating affinities  with  something  above  and  before, 
but  with  nothing  around.  That  once  great  na- 
tion has  been  poured  down  upon  the  earth  like 
quicksilver — it  has  split  into  innumerable  scatter- 
ed and  disintegrated  globules,  which  the  hand  of 
the  Great  Proprietor  will  yet  collect,  and  form 
into  a  mighty  mass  that  shall  glow  with  imperish- 
able splendor  and  reflect  his  glory.  Many  thou- 
sand years  ago,  God  in  prophecy  pronounced  the 
future  dispersion  and  doom  of  the  Jews,  and  God 
in  history  has  kept  them  like  the  bush  on  Horeb — 
burning  and  not  consumed — till  that  day  come 
when  the  glory  shall  return  from  between  the 
cherubim,  and  the  dry  bones  rush  together  from  a 
thousand  lands,  and  the  groans  of  creation,  and 
the  oppression  of  the  Jew,  and  the  travail  of  the 
Christian,  cease  together.  Do  we  not  hear  every 
morning  a  deep-toned  voice  in  our  streets  ?  It  is 
the  echo  of  the  voice  of  God  in  prophecy — evidence 
to  a  skeptic  world  that  God's  word  is  truth.  No 
man  can  read  the  history  of  the  Jews,  and  the 
prophecy  of  which  that  history  is  the  shadow  pro- 
jected into  many  years  and  lands,  and  not  con- 
clude that  the  prescience  of  God  pronounced  the 
prediction,  and  that  the  presence  of  God  in  history 
superintends  its  fulfillment. 

Let  any  man  read  the  descriptions  of  Eomanism, 
as  they  are  delineated  in  the  New  Testament 
Scriptures — in  the  second  chapter  of  2  Thessa- 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  65 

lonians  for  instance,  the  reading  of  which  has  made 
Eoman  Catholics  declare  that  Protestants  must 
have  interpolated  the  wortls  in  order  to  describe 
their  Church — and  compare  with  them  the  de- 
velopment in  history  of  the  features  and  facts  of 
that  terrihle  apostasy; — the  system  with  which 
we  shall  soon  have  to  grapple, — a  system  which 
refuses  to  examine  a  dogma  lest  it  lose  faith  in  it ; 
which  regards  prayer  as  a  punishment,  and  simony 
as  a  virtue ;  which  puts  the  queen  of  heaven  in  the 
place  of  the  Saviour  of  sinners,  and  mechanical 
ceremonies  in  the  stead  of  spiritual  worship ; — a 
system  which  speaks  all  tongues  and  lives  in  all 
lands ;  which  enters  alike  royal  cabinet  and  re- 
publican congress ;  whose  hundred  hands  grasp 
the  sceptre  and  arrange  the  ballot-box;  whose 
wiles  seduce  priests  and  statesmen  to  endow 
Popery  in  Ireland,  and  open  diplomatic  inter- 
course with  the  Pope  in  Italy ;  whose  fine  music 
and  dramatic  ceremonies  draw  over  young  men 
by  thousands  to  Eomish  cathedrals ; — and  see  if 
Popery,  in  its  creeds,  and  canons,  and  history,  and 
deeds,  be  not  a  counterpart  of  prophecy  in  the 
pages  of  the  word  of  God. 

Romanism,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  is  the 
echo  of  its  description  in  the  first.  Let  any  one 
compare  the  facts  that  have  arisen  during  the 
siege  of  Rome  in  1849  with  the  description  of  its 
last  catastrophe  in  Rev.  xviii,  as  I  have  atttempt- 
ed  to  do  in  my  lectures  on  the  Seven  Churches, 
and  say  if  the  "  First  and  the  Last,"  who  speaks 


66  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

in  that  chapter,  be  not  now  acting  in  this  history. 
Already,  writes  a  correspondent,  "  four  thousand 
Protestant  Bibles  (Diodati)  have  been  printed  and 
eagerly  bought  up,  and  the  spirit  of  detestation  with 
which  the  clergy  are  now  regarded  renders  their 
doctrines  (as  held  forth  by  Jesuitical  teachers) 
doubly  unpalatable  to  the  people.  Important  docu- 
ments, just  discovered,  reveal  a  complete  system 
of  Jesuitical  propagandism  in  England,  and  espe- 
cially in  Ireland,,  from  which  country  the  frequent 
visits  of  young  priests  to  this  capital  (London) 
were  not  certainly  unimportant." 

Great  Babylon  is  come  into  remembrance  before 
God.  Her  consumption  is  begun  :  God  is  appear- 
ing in  the  last  chapters  of  her  history,  in  answer 
to  the  prayers  of  a  thousand  years. 

Not  the  least  remarkable  proof  that  Eev.  xviii 
is  writing  its  records  in  deeds,  is  the  exposure  of 
the  persecution  and  crimes  of  Rome  now  coming 
to  light.  "In  her  was  found  the  blood  of  saints." 
The  office  of  the  "Holy  Inquisition  "  at  Eome  has 
been  opened  up  to  public  inspection.  Many  of  the 
secrets  of  that  prison-house  of  misery  have  perish- 
ed with  its  victims,  and  a  large  part  of  the  arch- 
ives have  apparently  been  destroyed  by  their  keep- 
ers ;  nevertheless,  enough  remains  to  show  the 
horrors  of  a  past  reign  of  spiritual  tyranny. 
There  are  relics  of  the  past  of  various  kinds,  and 
especially  in  the  collections  of  human  bones  dis- 
covered under  the  floor  of  this  vast  Pandemonium. 
How  many  men  and  women  have  perished  there ! 


GOD  IN    HISTORY.  67 

—  how  many  deeds  of  darkness  have  these  walls 
witnessed  ! — how  many  a  cry  of  anguish,  or  groan 
of  despair,  has  ascended  up  to  heaven,  though  un- 
heard or  unpitied  by  men,  from  the  secret  recesses 
of  this  place  of  torment !  Part  of  the  records 
remain ;  and  that  part  is  illustrative,  to  a  fearful 
extent,  of  the  evils  of  the  confessional  —  that 
hateful  engine  of  Eomish  craft  and  wickedness. 
In  the  memorial  regarding  the  exposure  of  the 
"  holy  office"  we  read  the  subjoined  paragraph : — 
"Attention  was  especially  directed  to  the  book 
called  of  "Solecitazione,"(it  contains  reports,)  and 
to  the  correspondence.  This  was  done  by  order 
of  the  government,  which  thereby  gave  another 
proof  of  that  moderation  which  its  enemies  deny 
to  it.  Their  results,  from  a  careful  examination 
of  these  documents,  which  remain  for  the  inspec- 
tion of  such  as  desire  proofs  that  the  past  govern- 
ment made  use  of  this  tribunal,  strictly  ecclesias- 
tical in  its  institution,  also  for  temporal  and  po- 
litical objects,  and  that  the  most  culpable  abuse 
was  made  of  sacramental  confession,  especially 
that  of  women,  rendering  it  subservient  both  to 
political  purposes  and  to  the  most  abominable 
licentiousness.  It  can  be  shown  from  documents, 
that  the  cardinals,  secretaries  of  state,  wrote  to 
the  commissary  to  the  assessor  of  the  holy  office, 
to  procure  information  as  to  the  conduct  of  sus- 
pected individuals,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  and 
to  obtain  knowledge  of  state  secrets  by  means  of 
confession,  especially  those  of  foreign  courts  and 


68  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

cabinets.  In  fact,  there  exists  long  correspond- 
ences, and  voluminous  processes,  and  severe  sen- 
tences, pronounced  upon  La  Giorine  Italia,  La 
Jeune  Suisse,  the  masonic  societies  of  England 
and  Scotland,  and  the  anti-religious  sects  of  Ame- 
rica, etc.  There  is  an  innumerable  quantity  of 
information  and  processes  on  scandalous  and  ob- 
scene subjects,  in  which  the  members  of  regular 
religious  societies  are  usually  implicated." 

Yet  strange  !  but  true !  and  evidence  that  God 
in  history  is  not  Divine  responsibility  for  human 
sins  ;  every  new  corruption  that  Eome  took  to  her 
bosom  shot  forth  into  a  curse  that  tormented  her, 
as  if  to  show  that  while  God  predicted  her  he  did 
not  make  her.  The  sword  with  which  she  evan- 
gelized smote  herself — the  decretals  and  chartu- 
laries  which  she  forged  became  the  witnesses  of 
her  crimes  —  the  cathedrals  she  built  from  the 
plunder  of  widows  and  orphans  echoed  with  her 
own  groans,  and,  in  1793,  flowed  with  her  own 
blood  —  her  doctrine  of  priestly  celibacy  has  been 
poison  in  her  veins — and  her  confessional,  erected 
to  be  the  seat  of  power,  has  been  felt  by  her  as  a 
burning  throne.  At  every  stage  of  her  develop- 
ment, God  in  but  not  of  her  history  has  cried 
aloud,  "  Do  it  not " —  as  often  she  has  done  it 
and  suffered. 

How  remarkable,  too,  is  this  fact,  that  in  every 
country,  and  in  every  century,  Eomanism  has  left 
behind  her,  or  created  under  her  sway,  the  irre- 
sistible evidence,  that,  as  she  is  not  from  God,  so 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  69 

she  is  not  a  blessing  to  mankind.  I  quote  from 
the  pages  of  one  who  has  espoused  the  political 
demands  of  Rome,  and  has  advocated  the  endow- 
ment of  her  priests  —  I  mean  Babington  Macau- 
lay —  in  his  brilliant,  but,  in  many  respects,  pas- 
sionate and  partial  History  of  England.  He 


"  From  the  time  when  the  barbarians  overran 
the  western  empire  to  the  time  of  the  revival  of 
letters,  the  Church  of  Rome  had  been  generally 
favourable  to  science,  to  civilization,  and  to  good 
government.  But  during  the  last  three  centuries, 
to  stunt  the  growth  of  the  human  mind  has  been 
her  chief  object.  Throughout  Christendom,  what- 
ever advance  has  been  made  in  knowledge,  in 
freedom,  in  wealth,  and  in  the  arts  of  life,  has 
been  made  in  spite  of  her,  and  has  everywhere 
been  in  inverse  proportion  to  her  power.  The 
loveliest  and  most  fertile  provinces  in  Europe 
have,  under  her  rule,  been  sunk  in  poverty,  in  po- 
litical servitude,  and  in  intellectual  torpor ;  while 
Protestant  countries,  once  proverbial  for  sterility 
and  barbarism,  have  been  turned  by  skill  and  in- 
dustry into  gardens,  and  can  boast  of  a  long  line 
of  heroes,  statesmen,  philosophers,  and  poets. 
Whoever,  knowing  what  Italy  and  Scotland  natu- 
rally are,  and  what,  four  hundred  years  ago,  they 
actually  were,  shall  now  compare  the  country 
round  Rome  with  the  country  round  Edinburgh, 
will  be  able  to  form  some  judgment  as  to  the 
tendency  of  Papal  domination.  The  descent  of 


70  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

Spain,  once  the  first  among  monarchies,  to  the 
lowest 'state  of  degradation  —  the  elevation  of 
Holland,  in  spite  of  many  disadvantages,  to  a 
position  such  as  no  commonwealth  so  small  has 
ever  reached  —  teach  the  same  lesson.  Whoever 
passes  in  Germany  from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a 
Protestant  principality,  in  Switzerland  from  a 
Eoman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  canton,  in  Ireland 
from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  county, 
finds  that  he  passes  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  grade 
of  civilization.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic 
the  same  law  prevails.  The  Protestants  of  the 
United  States  have  left  far  "behind  them  the  Ro- 
man Catholics  of  Mexico,  Peru,  and  Brazil.  The 
Roman  Catholics  of  Lower  Canada  remain  inert, 
while  the  whole  continent  round  them-  is  in  fer- 
ment with  Protestant  activity  and  enterprise. 
The  French  have  doubtless  shown  an  energy  and 
intelligence,  even  when  misdirected,  which  have 
entitled  them  to  he  called  a  great  people.  But 
this  apparent  exception,  when  examined,  will  he 
found  to  confirm  the  rule — for  in  no  country  that 
is  called  Roman  Catholic  has  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  during  several  generations,  possessed  so 
little  authority  as  in  France." 

You  have  read  and  heard  of  the  controversies 
and  discussions  of  the  ancient  fathers,  councils, 
and  ecclesiastical  writers.  These  were  frequently 
fierce,  and  often  turned  on  some  word  or  syllable 
of  the  sacred  text. 

Let  the  value  of  some  of  their  discussions  be 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  71 

placed  at  as  low  a  rate  as  you  like :  their  writings, 
preserved  by  that  Church  which  was  less  willing 
to  preserve  the  Bible,  contain  almost  all  the  New 
Testament ;  so  that,  were  every  copy  of  the  New 
Testament  suddenly  to  disappear  from  the  earth, 
I  could  gather  almost  the  whole  volume  from  the 
folios  of  the  fathers.  It  thus  appears  that  God 
was  present  in  the  midst  of  these  controversies, 
overruling  them  for  the  safety  and  preservation 
of  his  word.  The  fragments  of  the  writings  of 
Porphyry  and  Celsus,  the  ancient  opposers  of 
Christianity,  prove  that  the  passages  they  quoted 
fifteen  hundred  years  ago  are  verbatim  in  their 
writings  as  they  exist  in  our  Bibles ;  and  thus  the 
Bible  is  proved  by  infidel  evidence  to  be  pure  to- 
day as  it  proceeded  from  its  Fountain. 

The  preservation  of  the  Old  Testament  in  its 
uncorrupted  purity  is  evidence  of  God  in  history. 
The  distinction  of  the  twelve  tribes  gave  each  an 
interest  in  preserving  their  law  in  its  integrity. 
Their  kings  had  each  to  write  out  a  copy  of  the 
law.  The  people,  in  order  to  obey  God's  command 
to  teach  it  to  their  children,  must  also  have  had 
or  written  out  copies  of  it.  The  jealousy  of  the 
Jews  and  Samaritans  made  the  one  a  check  on 
the  other.  The  translation  of  the  Old  Testament 
into  Greek,  and  its  dissemination  throughout  the 
world — the  Chaldee  paraphrase — the  very  super- 
stitions of  the  Jews,  who  counted  the  letters  and 
paragraphs  and  fixed  the  middle  letter  and  middle 
word  of  each  book,  are  all  proofs  of  the  presence 


72  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

of  God  disposing  the  good  and  overruling  the  bad 
to  the  preservation  of  the  purity  and  safety  of  the 
sacred  records.  No  part  of  the  Old  or  New  Testa- 
ment is  lost. 

Of  the  facts  recorded  in  the  Bible,  every  day, 
and  every  land,  and  every  science,  furnish  evidence. 
The  Andes,  the  Alps,  the  Pyrenees,  hold  in  their 
gigantic  bosoms  the  demonstrative  evidences  of  the 
flood.  Heathen  writers  witness  to  the  Tower  of 
Babel ;  and  Tacitus,  Strabo,  and  Josephus,  record 
the  destruction  of  Gomorrah.  Young,  Salt,  and 
Champollion  have  drawn  from  the  stony  lips  of 
the  Pyramids  testimonies  of  the  truths  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  made  the  hieroglyphics  on  innumerable 
fragments  to  reflect  the  scenes  of  four  thousand 
years  ago ;  and,  out  of  the  very  tombs  of  Egypt, 
Belzoni  has  raised  witnesses,  as  it  were  from  the 
dead,  to  cry  in  the  ear  of  a  skeptic  world,  "  Thy 
word  is  truth."  Those  mysterious  hieroglyphic 
letters  which  have  been  so  long  secret — engraven 
on  the  temples  of  deities,  the  palaces  of  kings,  the 
tombs  of  ancient  dynasties — on  the  gigantic  sphinx 
and  the  colossal  monolith,  by  the  hierophants  of 
Egypt,  in  their  robes  of  byssus  and  their  sandals 
of  byblus — those  scrolls  which  have  been  snatched 
from  dead  men's  fingers,  or  gathered  from  sealed 
sarcophagi,  or  the  dark  chambers  of  the  Pyramids 
— have,  in  the  providence  of  God,  been  opened  up 
by  the  genius  and  the  toils  of  man,  and  in  spite 
of  all  that  the  ancient  idolaters  could  have  wished, 
and  in  opposition  to  all  they  designed,  these  men 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  73 

show  the  God  of  Abraham  in  history,  proving  by 
daily  additional  facts,  how  frail  is  human  grandeur, 
how  lasting  is  Divine  truth  !  What  renders  these 
discoveries  more  conclusive  proofs  of  Divine  influ- 
ence is  the  fact,  that  few  of  those  who  have  been 
most  successful  in  their  excavations  intended  in 
any  shape  to  illustrate  the  word  of  God.  They 
prosecuted  their  researches  for  other  ends;  they 
sought  their  rewards  from  other  sources.  Unde- 
signedly  they  became  commentators  on  the  word 
some  of  them  scarcely  read,  many  of  them  scorned, 
and  few  cared  to  confirm.  A  very  remarkable 
instance  of  similar  investigations  is  furnished  by 
an  admirable,  scholar-like,  and  truly  Christian 
disquisition  on  St.  Paul's  voyage  and  shipwreck, 
by  James  Smith,  Esq.,  of  Jordan  Hall.  From  the 
ruins  of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii  coins  and 
medals  are  still  gathered,  silently  attesting  the 
same  fact. 

A  remarkable  evidence  of  God  in  history  is  fur- 
nished in  the  interesting  volumes  of  Mr.  Layard, 
which  describe  Nineveh  and  its  remains.  Let  us 
hear  God  in  prophecy  first,  and  next  see  God  in 
history  as  narrated  by  Mr.  Layard.  Nahum  i,  8 : 
"  But  with  an  overrunning  flood  the  Lord  will 
make  an  utter  end  of  the  place  thereof ;"  verse  14, 
"  I  will  make  thy  grave."  Nahum  ii,  10 :  "  She 
is  empty,  and  void,  and  waste."  Nahum  iii,  7  : 
"  All  they  that  look  upon  thee  shall  flee  from  thee, 
and  say,  Nineveh  is  laid  waste."  Zephaniah  ii,  13 : 
"  The  Lord  will  stretch  out  his  hand  against  the 


74  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

north,  and  destroy  Assyria,  and  will  make  Nineveh 
a  desolation,  and  dry  like  a  wilderness  ;"  verse  14, 
"  Desolation  shall  be  in  the  thresholds ;"  verse  15, 
"  How  is  she  become  a  desolation  !"  Let  us  now 
read  God  in  history,  making  visible  by  His  power 
the  word  that  He  spake  in  wisdom  and  truth. 

"Were  the  traveler  to  cross  the  Euphrates  to 
seek  for  such  ruins  in  Mesopotamia  and  Chaldea 
as  he  had  left  behind  him  in  Asia  Minor  or  Syria, 
his  search  would  be  vain.  The  graceful  column 
rising  above  the  thick  foliage  of  the  myrtle,  the 
ilex,  and  the  oleander — the  gradients  of  the  am- 
phitheatre covering  the  gentle  slope,  and  over- 
looking the  dark  blue  waters  of  a  lake-like  bay — 
the  richly-carved  capital  or  cornice,  half  hidden 
by  the  luxuriant  herbage — are  replaced  by  the 
stern,  shapeless  mound,  rising  like  a  hill  from  the 
scorched  plain,  the  fragments  of  pottery,  and  the 
stupendous  mass  of  brickwork  occasionally  laid 
bare  by  the  winter  rains.  He  has  left  the  land 
where  nature  is  still  lovely ;  where,  in  his  mind's 
eye,  he  can  rebuild  the  temple  or  the  theatre,  half 
doubting  whether  they  would  have  made  a  more 
grateful  impression  on  the  senses  than  the  ruin 
before  him.  He  is  now  at  a  loss  to  give  any  form 
to  the  rude  heaps  upon  which  he  is  gazing.  Those 
of  whose  works  they  are  the  remains  have  left  no 
visible  traces  of  their  civilization  or  of  their  arts — 
their  influence  has  long  since  passed  away.  The 
more  he  conjectures,  the  more  vague  the  results 
appear.  The  scene  around  is  worthy  of  the  ruin 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  77 

he  is  contemplating.  Desolation  meets  desolation ; 
a  feeling  of  awe  succeeds  to  wonder,  for  there  is 
nothing  to  relieve  the  mind,  to  lead  to  hope,  or  to 
tell  of  what  has  gone  hy.  These  huge  mounds  of 
Assyria  made  a  deeper  impression  on  me — gave 
rise  to  more  serious  thought  and  more  earnest  re- 
flection—  than  the  temples  of  Baalhec,  or  the 
theatres  of  Ionia."  —  Layard's  Nineveh,  vol.  i, 
chap,  i,  p.  28. 

The  words  of  the  traveler  are  the  echo  of  the 
prediction  of  the  prophet;  and  throughout  his 
statement  he  conveys  what  he  felt,  and  what  is 
precisely  the  impression  that  is  made  from  reading 
the  words  of  Nahum  and  Zephaniah. 

After  describing  the  human-headed  winged 
lions  and  hulls,  Mr.  Layard,  struck  with  the  coin- 
cidence between  the  prophet's  words,  uttered  near- 
ly three  thousand  years  ago,  and  the  facts  he  re- 
cords, thus  expresses  himself: — 

"  I  used  to  contemplate  for  hours  these  myste- 
rious emblems,  and  muse  over  their  intent  and  his- 
tory. What  more  noble  form  could  have  ushered 
the  people  into  the  temple  of  their  gods !  What 
more  sublime  images  could  have  been  borrowed 
from  nature  by  men  who  sought,  unaided  by  the 
light  of  revealed  religion,  to  embody  their  concep- 
tion of  the  wisdom,  power,  and  ubiquity  of  a  Su- 
preme Being  ?  They  could  find  no  better  type  of 
intellect  and  knowledge  than  the  head  of  the 
man  — of  strength  than  the  body  of  the  lion  — of 
rapidity  of  motion  than  the  wings  of  the  bird. 


78  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

These  winged  human-headed  lions  were  not  idle 
creations,  the  offspring  of  mere  fancy ;  their 
meaning  was  written  upon  them.  They  had  awed 
and  instructed  races  who  had  flourished  three 
thousand  years  ago.  Through  the  portals  which 
they  guarded,  kings,  priests,  and  warriors  had 
borne  sacrifices  to  their  altars  long  before  the  wis- 
dom of  the  East  had  penetrated  to  Greece,  and 
had  furnished  its  mythology  with  symbols  long 
recognized  by  the  Assyrian  votaries.  They  may 
have  been  buried  and  their  existence  may  have 
been  unknown,  before  the  foundation  of  the  eter- 
nal city.  For  twenty-five  centuries  they  had  been 
hidden  from  the  eye  of  man,  and  they  now  stood 
forth  once  more  in  their  ancient  majesty.  But 
how  changed  was  the  scene  around  them !  The 
luxury  and  civilization  of  a  mighty  nation  had 
given  place  to  the  wretchedness  and  ignorance  of 
a  few  half-barbarous  tribes.  The  wealth  of  tem- 
ples and  the  riches  of  great  cities  had  been  suc- 
ceeded by  ruins  and  shapeless  heaps  of  earth. 
Above  the  spacious  hall  in  which  they  stood,  the 
plough  had  passed,  and  the  corn  now  waved. 
Egypt  has  monuments  no  less  ancient  and  won- 
derful, but  they  have  stood  forth  for  ages  to  tes- 
tify her  early  power  and  renown ;  whilst  those  be- 
fore me  had  but  now  appeared  to  bear  witness  in 
the  words  of  the  prophet  that  '  once  the  Assyrian 
was  a  cedar  in  Lebanon  with  fair  branches,  and 
with  a  shadowing  shroud,  and  of  a  high  stature ; 
and  his  top  was  among  the  thick  boughs :  his 


GOD   IN  HISTORY.  79 

height  was  exalted  above  all  the  trees  of  the  field, 
and  his  boughs  were  multiplied,  and  his  branches 
became  long  because  of  the  multitude  of  waters, 
when  he  shot  forth.  All  the  fowls  of  heaven 
made  their  nests  in  his  boughs,  and  under  his 
branches  did  all  the  beasts  of  the  field  bring  forth 
their  young,  and  under  his  shadow  dwell  all 
great  nations.'  Ezek.  xxxi,  3,  etc.  For  now 
'  Nineveh  is  a  desolation,  and  dry  like  a  wilder- 
ness, and  flocks  lie  down  in  the  midst  of  her,  all 
the  beasts  of  the  nations  ;  both  the  cormorant  and 
bittern  lodge  in  the  upper  lintels  of  it ;  their 
voice  sings  in  the  windows,  and  desolation  is  in 
the  thresholds.7  Zeph.  ii,  13"—Layard's  Nine- 
veh, vol.  i,  p.  75. 

It  is  thus  that  God  still  acts  in  history,  and 
that  all  men  are  agents,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously executing  his  purposes.  Bather  than  one 
evidence  be  wanting  to  vindicate  his  truth,  a  tra- 
veler shall  be  sent  from  England  to  Assyria,  and 
Arabs  and  Mohammedans,  and  viziers  and  cadis 
shall  laboriously  dig  into  the  earth,  and  lay  bare 
the  irresistible  evidence  of  verbal  inspiration — of 
God  proclaiming  what  would  be,  till  history,  from 
the  pen  of  Mr.  Layard,  shall  prove  that  God  has 
watched  the  currents  of  events,  and  worked  out 
the  proofs  that  He  is  and  reigns. 

Do  we  read  in  Jeremiah  iv,  1 :  "  Take  thee  a 
tile  and  lay  it  before  thee,  and  portray  upon  it 
the  city, even  Jerusalem?"  Mr.  Layard  finds  illus- 
trations of  this  custom  in  the  subterranean  cham- 


80  GOD  IN    HISTORY. 

bers  of  Nineveh.  He  states,  vol.  ii,  p.  147,  "  In 
many  public  and  private  collections,  there  are  in- 
scriptions on  tiles  and  barrel-shaped  cylinders  of 
baked  clay."  This  is  corroborative  proof  of  the 
date  of  the  prophecy. 

In  vol.  ii,  p.  239,  Mr.  Layard  thus  writes  : 
"  The  passage  in  Ezekiel  describing  the  interior 
of  the  Assyrian  palaces,  so  completely  corresponds 
with  and  illustrates  the  monuments  of  Nimrod 
and  Kharsabad,  that  it  deserves  particular  notice 
in  this  place.  The  prophet,  in  typifying  the  cor- 
ruptions which  had  crept  into  the  religious  system 
of  the  Jews,  and  the  idolatrous  practices  borrowed 
from  nations  with  whom  they  had  been  brought 
into  contact,  thus  illustrates  the  influence  of  the 
Assyrians: — 'She  saw  men  portrayed  upon  the 
walls,  the  images  of  the  Chaldeans  portrayed  with 
vermilion,  girded  with  girdles  upon  their  loins, 
exceeding  in  dyed  attire  upon  their  heads,  all  of 
them  princes  to  look  to,  after  the  manner  of  the 
Babylonians  of  Chaldea,  the  land  of  their  nativ- 
ity.7 Ezek.  xxiii,  14,  15.  There  can  scarcely  be 
a  doubt  that  Ezekiel  had  seen  the  objects  which 
he  describes — the  figures  sculptured  upon  the  wall 
and  painted.  The  prevalence  of  a  red  color  shown 
by  the  Kharsabad  remains,  and  one  elaborate  and 
highly-ornamented  head-dress  of  the  Kharsabad 
and  Kouyurijik  kings  are  evidently  indicated." 
Thus  the  faithfulness  and  reality  of  the  descrip- 
tion of  Ezekiel,  and  the  evidence  that  he  saw 
what  he  delineates,  and  at  the  very  time  at  which 


GOD. IN  HISTORY.  81 

the  Scripture  shows  that  he  lived,  are  made  more 
apparent  by  these  researches  among  the  ruins  of 
Nineveh.  In  vol.  ii,  p.  289,  Mr.  Layard  states, 
that  Ezekiel's  prophecy  of  the  destruction  of  Tyre 
by  Nebuchadnezzar  illustrates  the  bas-reliefs  of 
Nimrod.  "  For  thus  saith  the  Lord  God;  Behold, 
I  will  bring  upon  Tyrus  Nebuchadnezzar  king  of 
Babylon,  a  king  of  kings,  from  the  north,  with 
horses,  and  with  chariots,  and  with  horsemen, 
and  companies,  and  much  people.  He  shall  slay 
with  the  sword  thy  daughters  in  the  field ;  and 
he  shall  make  a  fort  against  thee,  and  cast  a 
mount  against  thee,  and  lift  up  the  buckler 
against  thee.  And  he  shall  set  engines  of  war 
against  thy  walls,  and  with  his  axes  he  shall 
break  down  thy  towers.  By  reason  of  the  abun- 
dance of  his  horses  their  dust  shall  cover  thee : 
thy  walls  shall  shake  at  the  noise  of  the  horse- 
men, and  of  the  wheels,  and  of  the  chariots,  when 
he  shall  enter  into  thy  gates,  as  men  enter  into  a 
city  wherein  is  made  a  breach.  With  the  hoofs 
of  his  horses  shall  he  tread  down  all  thy  streets  : 
he  shall  slay  thy  people  by  the  sword,  and  thy 
strong  garrisons  shall  go  down  to  the  ground. 
And  they  shall  make  a  spoil  of  thy  riches,  and 
make  a  prey  of  thy  merchandise  :  and  they  shall 
break  down  thy  walls,  and  destroy  thy  pleasant 
houses ;  and  they  shall  lay  thy  stones  and  thy 
timber,  and  thy  dust  in  the  midst  of  the  water." 

Opposite  p.  342,  vol.  ii,  Mr.  Layard  gives  a  re- 
presentation discovered  in  the  ruins  of  Nimrod, 


82  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

of  heathen  deities  carried  on  the  shoulders  of  As- 
syrian warriors,  a  bas-relief  which  illustrates  by 
fact  the  description  in  prophecy,  "  They  lavish 
gold  out  of  the  bag,  and  weigh  silver  in  the  bal- 
ance, and  hire  a  goldsmith  ;  and  he  maketh  it  a 
god :  they  fall  down,  yea,  they  worship.  They 
bear  him  upon  the  shoulder,  they  carry  him,  and 
set  him  in  his  place."  Isaiah  xlvi,  6,  7. 

In  vol.  ii,  p.  351,  Mr.  Layard  writes :  "  The  re- 
semblance between  the  symbolical  figures  I  have 
described,  and  those  seen  by  Ezekiel  in  his  vision, 
can  scarcely  fail  to  strike  the  reader.  As  the 
prophet  had  beheld  the  Assyrian  palaces  with  their 
mysterious  images  and  decorations,  it  is  highly 
probable  that,  when  seeking  to  typify  certain  Di- 
vine attributes  and  to  describe  the  Divine  glory, 
he  chose  forms  that  were  not  only  familiar  to  him, 
but  to  the  people  whom  he  addressed  —  captives, 
like  himself,  in  the  land  of  Assyria. 

"  Ezekiel  saw  in  his  vision  the  likeness  of  four 
living  creatures,  which  had  four  faces,  four  wings, 
and  the  hands  of  a  man  under  these  wings,  on 
their  four  sides.  Their  faces  were  those  of  a  man, 
a  lion,  an  ox,  and  an  eagle.  By  them  was  a  wheel, 
the  appearance  of  which  was  as  it  were  a  wheel  in 
the  middle  of  a  wheel.  It  will  be  observed  that 
the  four  forms  chosen  by  Ezekiel  to  illustrate  his 
description — the  man,  the  lion,  the  bull,  and  the 
eagle  —  are  precisely  those  which  are  constantly 
found  in  Assyrian  monuments  as  religious  types. 
The  '  wheel  within  the  wheel/  mentioned  in  con- 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  83 

nection  with  the  emblematical  figures,  may  refer 
to  the  winged  circle  or  wheel  representing  at  Nim- 
rod  the  Supreme  Deity." 

It  is  very  doubtful  how  far  Mr.  Layard's  con- 
jecture is  correct  that  the  prophet  borrowed  his 
figures  from  the  Assyrian  sculptures.  It  is  far 
more  likely  that  the  Assyrian  sculptures  were 
corrupted  traditional  or  sensuous  images  of  in- 
spired revelations.  The  prophet  does  not  borrow 
imagery.  He  describes  a  vision  in  imagery  which 
God  made  to  pass  before  his  eyes.  Besides  it  is 
very  unlikely  he  would  adopt  as  emblems  of 
Deity,  those  very  representations  respecting  which 
he  says,  (viii,  10,)  "Behold  every  form  of  creeping 
things  and  abominable  beasts,  and  all  the  idols 
of  the  house  of  Israel  portrayed  upon  the  walls 
round  about." 

The  evidence  however  of  one  set  of  imagery 
being  connected  with  the  other  is  abundant ;  the 
minute  accuracy  of  the  prophet  is  thus  confirmed 
by  the  researches  of  Mr.  Layard,  and  the  impres- 
sion is  more  and  more  deepened  that  the  labors 
of  the  latter  ware  predetermined  of  God,  and  that 
while  he  thought  he  was  merely  illustrating  As- 
syrian history,  he  was  really  commenting  on  the 
word  of  God,  and  what  he  supposed  would  prove 
merely  an  addition  of  new  and  interesting  hiero- 
glyphic bas-reliefs  and  sculptures  to  the  treasures 
of  the  British  Museum,  was  truly  new  contribu- 
tions to  the  Church  of  Christ.  It  is  thus  that 
Mr.  Layard's  book  is  God  speaking  in  history. 


84  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

There  is  a  Divine  presence  evident  in  the  time 
as  well  as  person  and  place.  Mr.  Layard  states, 
vol.  ii,  pp.  116,  117,  "My  labors  in  Assyria  had 
now  drawn  to  a  close.  The  funds  assigned  to  the 
Trustees  of  the  British  Museum  for  the  excava- 
tions had  been  expended,  and  from  the  instruc- 
tions sent  to  me  further  researches  were  not,  for 
the  present  at  least,  contemplated.  On  looking 
back  upon  the  few  months  that  I  had  passed  in 
Assyria,  I  could  not  but  feel  some  satisfaction  at 
the  result  of  my  labors.  Scarcely  a  year  before, 
with  the  exception  of  the  ruins  of  Kharsabad,  not 
one  Assyrian  monument  was  known.  Almost 
sufficient  materials  had  now  been  obtained  to  ena- 
ble us  to  restore  much  of  the  lost  history  of  the 
country  and  to  confirm  the  vague  traditions  of  the 
learning  and  civilization  of  its  people  hitherto 
treated  as  fabulous.  It  had  often  occurred  to  me 
during  my  labors  that  the  time  of  the  discovery 
of  these  remains  was  so  opportune  that  a  person 
inclined  to  be  superstitious  (that  is,  to  recognize 
God  in  history)  might  look  upon  it  as  something 
more  than  accidental.  Had  these^palaces  been  by 
chance  exposed  to  view  some  years  before,  no  one 
would  have  been  ready  to  take  advantage  of  the 
circumstance,  and  they  would  have  been  complete- 
ly destroyed  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  country. 
Had  they  been  discovered  a  little  later,  it  is  highly 
probable  there  would  have  been  insurmountable 
objections  to  their  removal.  It  was  consequently 
just  at  the  right  moment  that  they  were  disin- 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  85 

terred,  and  we  have  been  fortunate  enough  to  ac- 
quire the  most  convincing  and  lasting  evidence  of 
that  magnificence  and  power  which  made  Nineveh 
the  wonder  of  the  ancient  world,  and  her  fall  the 
theme  of  the  prophets,  as  the  most  signal  instance 
of  Divine  vengeance.  Without  the  evidence  that 
these  monuments  afford,  we  might  almost  have 
doubted  that  the  great  Nineveh  ever  existed,  so 
completely  'has  she  become  a  desolation  and  a 
waste.7 " 

God  is  thus  collecting  and  arranging  all  things 
to  witness  to  His  word.  He  is  in  the  Pyramids  of 
Egypt  —  in  the  ruins  of  Pompeii —  in  the  labora- 
tories of  science  —  in  literature,  in  poetry,  calling 
up  new  heralds  of  his  glory ;  and  by-and-by  the 
whole  earth  shall  be  covered  with  ten  thousand 
times  ten  thousand  witnesses  from  every  realm, 
and  school,  and  kingdom,  and  science,  who,  Baptist- 
like,  shall  point  while  they  preach,  "  Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world!" 


86  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PROVIDENCE    HAS    OVERRULED    FOR    GOOD   THE     DISPUTES  OF   THE 
CHURCH — ART    OF    PRINTING  —  JOSEPH  —  SAUL  —  JOSEPHUS  — 

GIBBON TETZEL LUTHER  MELANCTHON THE      FRENCH 

REVOLUTION  —  NAPOLEON  —  ERA   OF    MISSIONARY    SOCIETIES  — 
BIBLE    SOCIETY. 

IT  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  disputes  and 
differences  among  true  Christians  about  minor 
things,  as  Church-government,  and  rubrics,  and 
rites,  etc.,  have  been  the  occasion  of  preventing 
the  minutest  passages  of  Scripture  from  the  very 
possibility  of  alteration,  in  order  to  favor  a  par- 
ticular view.  The  watchful  controversialist  would 
instantly  have  exposed  the  attempt  of  his  oppo- 
nent to  alter  a  text.  Even  in  the  literature  and 
logomachies  of  the  scholastic  divines,  during  the 
dark  and  leaden  ages  of  mediaeval  Europe,  we  can 
trace  the  presence  and  providence  of  God.  They 
kept  alive  and  stimulated  mental  activity,  and 
their  abstruse  speculations  led  to  the  foundation 
of  noble  universities  and  useful  schools ;  and  their 
incessant  controversial  war  —  in  which  the  An- 
gelic doctor  beat  the  Seraphic,  and  he  the  Irre- 
fragable—  kept  in  practice  those  powers  which 
were  destined  at  the  Eeformation  to  "  contend 
earnestly  for  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the 
saints."  The  scholastic  divinity  was  the  old  and 
worn-out  instrument  on  which  the  musician  prac- 
tised and  acquired  the  skill  that  enabled  him  to 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  87 

touch  with  power  and  draw  forth  the  harmonies 
of  a  nohler  one.  God  was  among  the  schoolmen 
of  the  middle  ages.  Peter  Lomhard,  Duns  Scotus, 
and  Thomas  Aquinas  had  their  mission.  Those 
ahstractions  of  theirs  which  the  eagle's  eye  could 
not  see,  and  those  fooleries  of  theirs  which  a  mo- 
dern dunce  cannot  tolerate,  were  not  useless.  Had 
Christianity  appeared  ahroad  in  its  princely  and 
glorious  aspect,  it  had  been  quenched  and  banish- 
ed from  the  earth  by  the  Eomish  autocrat.  As  it 
was,  these  schoolmen  wove  the  ark  of  dialectic 
subtleties  in  which  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem  was 
preserved  from  the  Pharaohs  of  the  earth.  When 
the  time  of  the  Church's  deliverance  drew  near,  it 
was  the  scandalous  lives  of  the  prominent  eccle- 
siastics, the  excesses  of  their  tyranny,  the  merely- 
literary  character  of  Leo  X.,  the  prevailing  igno- 
rance as  well  as  immorality  of  the  priests,  that 
were  overruled  by  God  to  precipitate  the  great 
Eeformation.  Nor  can  one  fail  to  perceive  that 
the  fall  of  Constantinople,  the  learned  refugees  of 
which  covered  Europe  with  the  treasures  of  anci- 
ent learning,  and  next  the  discovery  of  printing, 
were  God's  appointed  heralds,  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness, "  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord."  Thus 
the  fall  of  Constantinople,  which  gave  new  impetus 
to  scholarship,  was  the  evidence  of  the  presence 
and  overruling  providence  of  God.  Thus  Gutten- 
berg,  the  inventor  of  printing,  was  not  a  mere 
accident  — an  isolated  fact.  He  was  as  much  the 
creature  of  God  as  the  highest  angel;  and  his 


88  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

work,  unconsciously  on  his  part,  a  contribution  to 
the  sovereign  purposes  of  Deity. 

It  is  thus  seeing  all  facts  as  part  of  a  great  whole 
that  gives  the  least  so  sublime  a  significance. 

Lords  of  science,  ye  who  read 
Wisely  the  eternal  creed, 
Writ  on  sky,  and  sea,  and  land, 
By  an  ancient  author's  hand, 
Chant  from  stone  and  starry  pages 
The  old  laws  that  rule  the  ages, 
Poets,  who  have  bravely  striven 
To  o'ershadow  earth  and  heaven, 
Faint  not  in  your  noble  duty, 
Feed  the  heart  of  earth  with  beauty, 
And  with  old  religion's  light 
Bid  her  dreaming  face  grow  bright. 
Statesmen,  who  have  wielded  power 
To  give  to  man  a  Sabbath  hour ; 
All  pure  hearts,  your  task  renew, 
God  himself  hath  need  of  you. 
Simple  minds,  that  every  day 
Watch,  and  wait,  and  think,  and  pray, 
Ye  are  children  of  one  mother, 
Save  and  succour  one  another ; 
Each  contributing  his  drop 
To  the  increasing  sea  of  good ; 
Sow,  and  ye  shall  reap  the  crop, 
Stand,  ye  cannot  be  withstood. 

To  pass  on  to  individual  instances. 

In  the  beautiful  and  simple  story  of  Joseph, 
which  is  worked  up  with  our  earliest  recollections ; 
— his  visit  to  his  brethren  in  Dotham — the  pit — 
the  purchase — the  prison — the  accusation — the 
elevation  to  Pharaoh's  right  hand,  are  evidence 
that  facts  are  more  resplendent  than  fiction,  and 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  89 

that  God  is  in  the  minutest  turning  of  individual 
biography  as  much  and  as  truly  as  in  the  mightiest 
pulse  of  national  or  European  life. 

Saul  of  Tarsus,  delighted  with  the  work  of  per- 
secution— serving  his  sanguinary  apprenticeship 
by  watching  the  outer  garments  of  the  murderers 
of  Stephen — a  persecutor  from  taste — an  amateur 
in  blood — sets  out  to  Damascus,  full  of  energy 
and  overflowing  with  prescriptive  zeal.  Midway 
a  voice  sounds  from  the  sky  that  laid  him  in  the 
dust,  and  left  him  the  advocate  of  the  cause  he 
endeavored  to  crush,  and  the  preacher  of  that 
Christianity  which  he  till  then  had  hoped  to  ex- 
punge from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Josephus  the  historian,  a  Jew,  sits  down,  amid 
the  debris  of  Jerusalem,  to  write  its  history,  and 
to  praise,  as  he  felt  it  expedient,  his  Koman  master, 
and  yet  cover  as  he  could  the  sins  and  shame  of 
his  people,  for  whom  his  sympathies  still  glowed. 
These  were  his  motives  and  ends.  He  writes  his 
history,  and  therein  records,  unconsciously  and 
undesignedly  on  his  part,  the  fulfillment  of  the 
Saviour's  prediction  of  the  fall  of  Jerusalem ;  so 
much  so,  that,  if  asked  to  produce  a  minute  and 
detailed  evidence  of  the  strict  and  amplest  fulfill- 
ment of  what  is  written  in  Matthew  xxiv,  and  ir- 
resistible proof  that  Jesus  is  the  Messiah — by  a 
witness  no  one  can  suspect  of  partiality,  or  accuse 
of  leaning  to  Christianity — I  would  summon  to 
my  presence  the  Jew  Josephus,  the  faithful  chroni- 
cler of  the  downfall  of  his  beloved  Jerusalem — 


, 

*  *  m.^ 


90  GOD   IN  HISTORY. 

of  the  utter  desolation  of  his  country,  and  of  the 
sufferings  of  its  guilty  inhabitants,  and  in  all  this 
a  faithful  witness  of  God  in  history. 

Gibbon  sits  down  by  the  lake  of  Geneva,  and 
amid  the  shadows  of  the  Alps,  to  sketch,  in  his 
own  magnificent  language,  the  decline  and  fall  of 
Rome.  He  casts  censure  where  he  can  on  Chris- 
tians, and  reproach  when  he  dares  on  Christianity, 
and  turns  to  caricature,  in  many  a  note,  its  finest 
and  sublimest  truths.  Christians  begin  to  study 
prophecy,  especially  the  Apocalypse — and  lo !  his 
very  sarcasms  are  important  proofs  of  its  truth, 
and  the  facts  he  collects  attestations  to  its  inspi- 
ration ;  and  the  scorn  he  flings  at  the  Bible  bursts 
into  the  glory  that  embosoms  and  illuminates  its 
history ;  and  of  all  commentators  on  the  Book  of 
Revelation,  he  who  set  out  with  a  determination  to 
upset  Christianity  itself  is  the  most  important — 
and  thus  the  author  of  the  "  Decline  and  Fall  of 
the  Roman  Empire"  is,  it  may  be  a  reluctant,  but 
an  irresistible  and  splendid  evidence  of  God  in 
history. 

The  monk  Tetzel  wect  forth  at  the  bidding  of 
Pope  Leo  X.  to  raise  money  by  any  process — the 
most  productive  the  best — for  finishing  the  Ca- 
thedral of  St.  Peter  at  Rome.  The  wretched  hire- 
ling sold  indulgences  and  pardons  for  past,  present, 
and  future  iniquities.  His  excesses  roused  the  in- 
dignation of  the  good  and  the  inquiries  of  the 
thinking.  Undesignedly  he  stirred  up  the  Refor- 
mation— he  digs  the  foundations  of  a  Protestant 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  91 

temple,  instead  of  gathering  funds  for  the  super- 
structure of  a  popish  one — his  voice  becomes  the 
requiem  of  German  Popery,  and  his  progress  its 
funeral  march.  The  blasphemies  of  the  monk 
Tetzel  awakened  the  feelings  of  the  monk  Luther, 
and  Pope  Leo  sending  his  emissary  to  collect 
money  for  superstitious  ends,  is  connected  with  the 
Lord  of  glory  commissioning  Luther  to  "  prophesy 
again,"  and  unfurl  that  glorious  banner  which  has 
waved  over  so  many  and  so  noble  lands  ;  and  thus 
Tetzel,  the  dealer  in  indulgences,  is  summoned 
from  his  infamous  grave,  to  attest  that  God  is  in 
history. 

We  see  God  remarkably  acting  throughout  this 
great  era  in  the  appearance  of  Melancthon,  the 
friend  and  fellow-laborer  of  Luther.  Luther  was 
irascible  and  inclined  to  violent  and  even  rash 
measures ;  so  much  so,  that  if  left  without  some 
regulating  and  corrective  presence  he  might  have 
ruined  the  edifice  it  was  his  heart's  desire  to  raise. 
Melancthon  was  more  learned  than  Luther — 
gentle,  amiable,  cautious — laboring  in  the  study 
to  illustrate  and  construct  again  the  great  truths 
which  ages  of  superstition  had  broken  up  or  hid. 
Melancthon  was  the  best  Greek  scholar  of  his  age 
— gifted  with  a  rich  and  impressive  eloquence,  and 
fitted  to  act  on  the  most  educated  minds.  Even 
Luther's  translation  of  the  Bible — no  mean  proof 
of  his  scholarship — received  not  a  little  of  its  ex- 
cellence from  the  revision  of  Melancthon.  Luther, 
with  that  superiority  to  petty  jealousy  by  which 


92  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

« 

his  noble  nature  was  always  characterized,  thus 
alludes  to  his  friend: — "  I  am  born  to  be  forever 
fighting  at  opponents,  and  with  the  devil  himself, 
who  gives  a  controversial  and  warlike  cast  to  all 
my  work.  I  clear  the  ground  of  stumps  and  trees, 
root  up  thorns  and  briars,  fill  up  ditches,  raise 
causeways,  and  smooth  roads  through  the  woods ; 
but  to  Philip  Melancthon  it  belongs,  by  the  grace 
of  God,  to  perform  a  milder  and  more  grateful 
labor — to  build,  to  plant,  to  sow,  to  water,  to  please 
by  elegance  and  taste."  Thus  did  the  son  of  the 
miner  make  his  hammer  ring  on  the  old  fortresses 
of  superstition. 

Thus  Paul  seemed  risen  from  the  dead  in  Luther, 
and  John  in  Melancthon,  and  God  appears  present 
in  the  arrangement.  Nor  is  God's  hand  less  visi- 
ble in  the  providence  which  brought  Melancthon 
to  Luther.  Frederic  the  Wise  wanted  a  Greek 
professor  for  his  new  university  at  Wittemberg ; 
and,  as  we  shall  see,  that  want  and  that  university 
were  not  accidents.  Eeuchlin  recommended  Me- 
lancthon, and  he  was  accepted.  Melancthon  gave 
his  first  lecture  on  the  study  of  Greek.  Luther 
was  one  of  his  audience  and  was  delighted.  Very 
soon  they  found  out  that  they  felt  common  sym- 
pathy, and  in  a  few  weeks  Luther's  letter  to  him 
began,  "  Mi  dulcissime  Philippe." 

Ranke  (Book  2,  c.  3)  observes,  "  It  was  an  im- 
portant thing  that  a  perfect  master  of  Greek 
arose  at  this  moment  at  a  university  where  the 
development  of  the  Latin  theology  already  led  to 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  93 

a  return  to  the  first  genuine  documents  of  primi- 
tive Christianity.  Luther  began  to  pursue  the 
study  of  Greek  with  earnestness.  His  mind  was 
relieved  and  his  confidence  strengthened,  when 
the  sense  of  a  Greek  phrase  threw  a  sudden  light 
on  his  theological  ideas.  When,  for  example,  he 
learned  that  the  idea  of  repentance,  (pcenitentia,) 
which,  according  to  the  language  of  the  Latin 
Church,  signified  expiation  and  satisfaction,  signi- 
fied in  the  original  conception  of  Christ  and  his 
Apostles,  nothing  "but  a  change  in  the  state  of  the 
mind,  it  seemed  as  if  a  mist  was  suddenly  with- 
drawn from  his  eyes."  Melancthon  was  subse- 
quently appointed  Professor  of  Theology,  and 
gave  a  currency  to  Protestant  truths  of  incalcu- 
lable value. 

I  need  not  quote  the  biography  of  Martin  Luther 
as  evidence  of  the  great  truth  I  am  endeavoring 
to  establish.  He  goes  into  an  Augustinian  con- 
vent in  order  to  prepare  himself  for  the  Eomish 
Church,  and  finding  a  Bible,  unread  before,  he 
gets  a  fresh  ray  of  truth  that  directs  him  out  of 
it.  He  makes  a  journey  to  Borne,  in  order  to  be 
strengthened  in  his  views  and  convictions  as  a  Eo- 
manist,  and  he  returns  disgusted  with  the  scenes 
of  profligacy  he  witnessed,  and  armed  with  inten- 
ser  indignation  against  the  very  system  he  went 
to  see  and  admire  in  its  most  favorable  position. 
He  is  sent  to  Wartburg  as  a  prisoner,  and  there 
he  translates  the  Bible.  The  Pope  flings  at  his 
head  a  whole  shower  of  anathemas,  and  Luther 


94  GOD   IN    HISTORY. 

reads  God's  holy  word  in  the  light  of  the  bonfire 
made  by  the  burning  of  the  anathemas  of  the 
sovereign  pontiff.  Every  stone  thrown  at  Luther 
rebounded  and  hit  Pope  Leo  X.  The  very  plans 
that  were  calculated  to  extinguish  the  rising  light 
acted  on  it  like  the  winds  of  heaven  on  a  forest  on 
fire. 

God  was  in  that  intense  and  stirring  history, 
and  therefore  all  opposition  —  persecution  — 
scheming  —  policy —  only  helped  it  to  culminate 
in  glory — in  victory.  We  see  sweep  along  these 
great  historic  events  the  long  procession  of  sol- 
diers, monks,  pilgrims,  kings,  emperors,  prelates, 
popes  ;  but  these  are  not  the  builders  —  they  are 
but  the  tools  in  the  Builder's  hand ;  these  are  not 
the  sculptors  —  they  are  but  the  chisels  obedient 
to  the  Sculptor's  touch. 

It  is  a  very  prevalent  idea,  that  certain  great 
and  important  discoveries — such  as  the  discovery 
of  printing,  just  prior  to  the  era  of  the  Keforma- 
tion — directly  gave  us  that  glorious  emancipation. 
I  believe  that  the  printing  press  was  no  more  the 
cause,  or  a  cause  of  that  event,  than  the  cock- 
crowing  is  of  the  dawn  of  day.  It  was  God  that 
interposed,  and  printing  and  Protestantism  were 
effects  that  rose  out  of  that  interposition.  That 
era  was  a  new  epoch  created  from  on  high,  and 
out  of  it  and  previous  to  it  arose  into  day  innu- 
merable blessings  indicating  the  presence  of  Him 
to  whom  the  glory  of  it  belongs.  It  is  neverthe- 
less true  that  a  great  amount  of  preliminary  pre- 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  95 

paration  had  been  made  by  Reformers  before  the 
Reformation. 

Johan  Von  Goch,  educated  at  one  of  the  schools 
of  the  Brethren  of  the  Life  in  Common,  and  foun- 
der of  the  priory  of  Tabor  in  Mechlin,  while  out- 
wardly accepting  monastic  rules  was  in  all  his 
convictions  as  expressed  by  himself  a  Protestant. 
He  was  deeply  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  primitive 
Christianity,  and  under  its  influence  rebuked  and 
protested  against  many  of  the  corruptions  of  the 
Papal  court  and  the  monastic  orders.  He  died 
in  1475,  eight  years  before  the  birth  of  Luther. 
Johan  Von  Wessel,  in  the  year  1450,  wrote  power- 
fully against  the  doctrine  of  indulgences.  Ac- 
cording to  Ullmann,  Wessel  had  proceeded  further 
in  his  principles  when  he  wrote  against  indulgen- 
ces than  Luther  had  done  when  he  wrote  on  the 
same  subject.  As  a  preacher  he  made  a  very  deep 
impression.  "  The  word  of  the  Lord/7  he  preached, 
"  is  bound  by  human  inventions  and  cannot  be 
freely  proclaimed.  A  tyrannical  power  rises  up 
against  it  on  all  sides —  it  is  opposed  by  the  teach- 
ing of  the  bishops,  to  say  nothing  of  the  legends 
of  saints,  the  fraud  of  indulgences,  and  the  fury 
of  the  monks  whom  one  must  exalt  to  heaven  if 
he  would  live  comfortably.  But  if  called  to  preach 
the  truth  do  not  stand  in  fear  of  the  anathemas 
thundered  in  the  Papal  bulls,  which  are  but  paper 
and  lead.  Our  souls  must  waste  away  with  spiritual 
famine,  unless  a  star  of  hope  shall  arise.  Deliver 
us,  O  God  of  Israel,  from  all  these  distresses." 


96  GOD  IN    HISTORY. 

But  while  these  and  others,  whose  names  are 
better  known,  were  pioneers  of  Luther,  and  were 
raised  up  of  God  for  this  end,  this  fact  does  not 
diminish  the  supernatural  character  of  the  Kefor- 
mation  itself.  "  Had  I  read  Wessel's  works  be- 
fore," says  Luther,  "'my  opponents  would  have 
said  Luther  has  borrowed  his  ideas  from  Wossel. 
This  greatly  encourages  and  comforts  me.  I  am 
therefore  no  longer  in  doubt  that  my  teaching 
is  true,  because  he  agrees  with  me  so  perfectly  in 
his  feelings,  in  his  views,  and  even  in  his  expres- 
sions." 

The  most  stupendous  event  since  the  Beforma- 
tion  —  its  antipode  in  some  respects  —  was  per- 
haps the  French  Revolution  of  1793. 

The  French  revolution  of  last  century  was  the 
second  act  in  the  consuming  of  the  Papacy,  and 
in  that  consumption  Napoleon  played  not  the 
least  effective  part.  Sovereigns  fell  before  him 
to  make  way  for  his  annihilating  and  victorious 
march;  and  having  struck  down  crowned  heads 
in  quick  succession,  he  extinguished  for  a  season 
the  Pope's  temporal  power,  and  made  Eome  a  part 
of  his  empire,  and  tfie  Pope  a  vassal  and  stipen- 
diary of  France.  God  had  spoken  in  the  prophecy 
of  Daniel  nearly  two  thousand  years  before,  fore- 
telling "  the  taking  away  of  dominion  from  it  to 
consume  and  to  destroy  it  unto  the  end."  This 
epoch  of  the  revolution  and  subsequent  sovereignty 
of  Napoleon  terminated  the  one  thousand  two  hun- 
dred and  sixty  years,  which  began  A.  D.  530,  at 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  97 

which  last  date  the  Code  of  Justinian  gave  a  legal 
standing  to  the  papacy. 

Ecclesiastical  and  Papal  lands  were  alienated 
from  the  Church,  monastic  houses  were  suppressed, 
and  in  1793  the  Komish  religion  was  formally 
abolished  in  France  —  the  churches  were  many  of 
them  razed  to  the  ground  —  their  bells  cast  into 
cannon  — the  priests  were  massacred  or  plundered, 
and,  as  if  to  show  that  it  was  the  Romish  faith 
alone  that  was  under  judgment,  England  and 
other  Protestant  lands  were  scarcely  touched. 
Finally,  in  1807,  the  ten  kings  or  horns  (Britain 
excepted,  which  fell  off  at  the  Reformation)  joined 
in  desolating  "  the  beast/7 

It  is  perfectly  wonderful  to  witness  how  punc- 
tually all  men  stand  up  at  the  moment  fixed  in 
the  purposes  of  God  to  do  his  will,  and  to  act  out 
his  written,  but  to  them  it  may  be  unknown,  pre- 
dictions. Prophecy  is  every  instant  rushing  into 
history.  History  is  but  the  flower  and  fruit  of 
prophecy,  and  all  men,  kings,  and  statesmen,  and 
priests  are  unconsciously  watering  and  fostering 
it.  What  was  prophecy  yesterday,  becomes  per- 
formance to-day ;  what  is  a  word  in  the  Bible  to- 
day, will  be  a  work  in  the  world  to-morrow.  God's 
presence  thus  develops  itself  in  power ;  and  na- 
tions, as  if  they  heard  the  oracles  of  heaven,  leave 
every  occupation  and  interest,  and  rush  to  execute 
them. 

Personated  and  condensed  as  was  the  French 
Revolutionary  fury  in  its  terrible  exponent  and 
5 


98  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

agent  —  Napoleon,  its  most  powerful  energies 
were  ultimately  directed  against  this  great  land 
of  ours — old  England.0 

In  our  policy  at  home,  so  finely  developed  by 
the  great  prime  minister  of  that  day — and,  above 
all,  in  the  master-spirits  that  crowded  every  deck, 
and  started  up  in  every  field — we  see  God's  great 
intervention  in  that  terrible  crisis  to  save  the  land 
of  light,  and  love,  and  truth,  and  freedom.  In 
vain  France,  shouting  for  ships,  colonies,  and  com- 
merce, hurried  her  ships,  and  admirals,  and  sailors, 
to  invade  or  sweep  our  shores.  The  very  name 
of  Nelson  carried  terror  into  all  opposing  crews  ; 
while  with  a  decision,  a  speed,  and  splendor,  unde- 
niably of  God,  he  swept  the  seas,  and  disappeared 
from  the  scene  as  soon  as  at  Trafalgar  he  had 
struck  the  finishing  blow. 

Alison  no  less  truly  than  eloquently  says :  "  In 
later  years,  when  his  achievements  had  marked 
him  out  as  the  great  defender  of  Christianity,  he 
considered  himself  an  instrument  in  the  hand  of 
Providence  to  combat  the  infidel  spirit  of  the  Ee- 
volution,  and  commenced  his  despatch  on  the  battle 
of  the  Nile,  by  ascribing  the  whole  to  Almighty 
God.  The  true  crisis  of  the  war  occurred  at  this 
period.  It  was  the  arm  of  Nelson  which  delivered 

0  In  passages  relating  to  his  own  country  our  author  ex- 
hibits quite  as  much  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Englishman  as 
the  impartiality  of  the  historian,  or  the  discrimination  of  the 
Christian  philosopher :  nevertheless,  we  allow  him  to  express 
his  views  in  his  own  way. — AM.  ED. 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  99 

his  country  from  her  real  danger — thenceforth 
the  citadel  of  her  strength  was  beyond  the  reach 
of  attack.  At  Waterloo  she  fought  for  victory  ; 
at  Trafalgar  for  existence." — Alison,  vol.  v,  p.  368. 

Having  done  God's  work  on  the  seas  by  exe- 
cuting his  judgments  on  them  that  had  provoked 
them,  our  country  had  to  complete  her  mission  by 
her  sacrifices,  deeds,  and  victories  upon  land. 

If  in  the  hour  of  need  God  sent  a  Nelson  to  do 
his  behest  upon  the  deck,  he  sent  a  Wellington  to 
rival  if  not  eclipse  him  on  the  field.  The  con- 
queror of  Europe  was  baffled  by  the  genius,  and 
humbled  by  the  heroism  of  THE  DUKE.  The  tor- 
rent of  military  conquest  that  gathered  speed  and 
bulk  with  progress,  and  carried  on  its  surging 
waves  whatever  religion  had  consecrated  or  time 
had  spared,  was  met  and  stemmed  by  Wellington : 
or  rather  rolled  back  in  its  stormy  channel,  and 
the  path  of  havoc  turned  into  the  career  of  vic- 
tory, till— on  the  field  of  Waterloo— the  Tra- 
falgar of  the  land — Napoleon  was  struck  down ; 
the  fabric  of  his  iron  empire  was  reduced  to  ruin, 
his  sword  was  shivered  in  his  grasp,  and  his  diadem 
torn  from  his  brow,  and  to  crown  his  degradation, 
he  himself  was  left  to  die  in  chains,  an  exile  in  a 
solitary  isle  of  the  Atlantic.  Can  we  doubt  that 
God  was  in  this  chapter  of  our  history  ?  The 
nations  that  denied,  or  blasphemed,  or  polluted 
his  name  by  their  superstitions,  felt  each  almost 
omnipotent  against  the  other,  but  found  all  com- 
bined but  weakness  against  that  land  whose 


100  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

monarch  reigns  DEI  GRATIA,  by  "  the  grace  of 
God,"  and  whose  people,  in  the  main,  look  beyond 
the  skies  to  the  everlasting  hills  for  strength  and 
victory. 

During  the  volcanic  outburst  of  the  first  French 
Ke volution,  and  while  God,  to  whom  the  thanks 
were  given,  carried  our  country  from  victory  to 
victory,  he  stirred  up  the  hearts  of  our  clergy  and 
people  at  home;  and  in  the  decade,  extending 
from  1792  to  1802,  nearly  all  our  missionary 
societies  were  created — as  if  to  show  that  while 
Satan  raged  and  smote  the  Kedeemer's  heel,  God 
put  forth  his  glorious  cross  and  crushed  the  ser- 
pent's head.  While  the  crashes  of  falling  dynas- 
ties were  echoed  from  every  shore  of  Britain,  there 
were  heard  sounding  over  the  main,  and  awaken- 
ing glad  music  amid  distant  isles  and  benighted 
deserts,  the  silver  sounds  of  the  trumpet  of  jubilee, 
and  God's  great  voice,  felt  to  be  greater  and 
"  mightier  than  the  noise  of  many  waters — yea, 
than  the  mighty  waves  of  the  sea." 

The  Baptist  Missionary  Society  first  lifted  up 
its  head  and  shone,  whilst  it  was  sprinkled  with 
the  beams  of  the  Sun  of  Kighteousness.  The 
London  Missionary,  the  Church  Missionary,  the 
Wesleyan  Missionary,  the  Eeligious  Tract,  and  the 
Bible  Societies,  raised  their  heads  in  glorious  suc- 
cession. There  are  differences  in  details,  identity 
in  truth,  and  rivalry  only  in  beneficence.  If  we 
look  at  a  series  of  mountain  peaks,  on  which  the 
first  rays  of  the  sun  are  falling,  the  intervening 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  101 

valleys  are  concealed  and  lost,  and  the  illuminated 
crags  and  pinnacles  alone  are  visible  in  the  rosy 
light  that  illuminates  them.  So  with  those  noble 
societies.  I  cannot  see  their  differences.  I  can 
only  see  their  bright  heights  glowing  in  the 
splendor  of  their  common  Sun.  I  cannot  hear 
in  them  any  voice  but  God's :  I  cannot  see  in  them 
any  life  but  love :  I  cannot  trace  in  their  history 
any  one  but  God,  who  makes  the  weakest  things 
monuments  of  his  might,  and  the  most  defective 
things  trophies  of  his  grace. 

During  all  the  revolutionary  storms  of  conti- 
nental Europe,  Britain  not  only  reposed  in  the 
quiet  sunshine  of  peace,  but  more  and  more  girded 
herself  as  a  Christian  people  to  go  forth  the 
ambassadress  of  heaven,  the  benefactress  of  the 
earth.  In  the  language  of  William  Wilberforce, 
whose  sanctified  influence  was  at  that  time  so 
eminently  blessed,  "  Amid  the  din  of  warlike  pre- 
parations, the  foundation  stone  was  laid  of  the 
Bible  Society,  an  institution  which  was  to  leaven 
all  nations  with  the  principles  of  peace:"  and 
thus,  while  other  nations  were  pulling  their  houses 
about  their  ears,  ours — alike  hut  and  hall — stood 
firm,  because  upon  the  Rock  of  Ages;  and  our 
hands  were  busy,  not  in  pulling  down  old  establish- 
ments, but  in  rearing  new  institutions,  which 
should  spread  the  everlasting  gospel  from  sea  to 
sea,  and  from  the  rivers  to  the  end  of  the  earth. 


102  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 


CHAPTER  V. 

NEW    ATTACKS    OF    INFIDELITY  —  DEPOSITIONS    OF     THE     POPE  — 
POPERY  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  FROM  QUEEN  MARY  TO  KING  WILLIAM 

MORE  RECENT  FACTS PEEL'S  MEASURES  AND  FALL  —  POPERY 

AND  CHOLERA  —  EUROPEAN  REVOLUTIONS  OF  1848  —  CIVIL  WARS 
—  MARAT. 

IT  was  about  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  and  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century  that  infidelity 
broke  out  with  increased  hostility  and  bitterness. 
But  in  this  also  was  manifest  the  overruling  pro- 
vidence of  God.  The  violence  of  the  assault  stirred 
up  the  noblest  spirits  of  Christendom,  and  the  de- 
fence so  completely  covered  the  attack  that  all  felt 
thankful  for  so  ferocious  an  onset,  because  of  so 
splendid  a  defence.  I  have  seen  the  sun  by  his 
very  brilliancy  exhale  from  the  earth  thick  mists 
that  grew  into  dark  clouds,  and  threatened  to 
eclipse  the  luminary  of  day ;  but  by  the  intensity 
of  the  same  beams  he  dissolved  the  clouds  into 
showers  which  refreshed  and  fertilized  the  earth 
they  concealed  from  the  sunlight.  So  the  Sun  of 
righteousness  draws  up,  by  his  very  glory,  clouds 
of  atheistic  and  infidel  opponents ;  but  the  same 
glory  that  provoked  their  exhalation  from  the 
earth,  turns  them  into  means  of  usefulness  and 
progress  to  his  kingdom.  What  the  world's  false 
prophets  pronounce  the  tombstone  of  Christianity, 
is  the  platform  on  which  this  Bird  of  Paradise 
plumes  its  wing  for  a  higher  flight  and  wider  range. 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  103 

While  at  that  time  God  was  so  conspicuous  in 
history — in  the  light  of  the  blessings  which  he 
showered  down  —  his  presence  was  singularly 
transparent  in  the  judgments,  which,  like  charter- 
ed emissaries,  walked  the  world  around  us.  The 
very  scenes  and  spots  where  nations  had  sinned 
with  a  high  hand  were  those  where"  God  pun- 
ished them  visibly  before  the  world.  Judgment 
tracked  the  sin,  and  struck  where  it  had  left  its 
trail. 

The  priests  of  France  had  stained  their  coun- 
try's soil  with  the  blood  of  slaughtered  victims  on 
occasions  as  melancholy  as  memorable  in  history, 
and  on  the  same  soil  the  priests  of  France  were 
humbled  and  cruelly  murdered  by  that  rampant 
infidelity  which  was  just  the  rebound  of  their  su- 
perstition. 

The  Pope  himself  was  seized  by  the  soldiers  of 
Napoleon  in  the  Sistine  chapel,  marched  a  prisoner 
amid  files  of  soldiers  along  the  ante-hall,  in  which 
are  still  retained  the  paintings  of  the  massacre  of 
the  French  Protestants  on  St.  Bartholomew's  eve. 
So  true  it  is  that  national  sins  will  sooner  or  later 
be  visited  by  national  retributions. 

And  what  are  the  news  of  the  passing  day?  In 
the  Times  Newspaper  of  November  28,  (1849,)  I 
read  :  — "  The  head  of  the  Romish  communion, 
lately  the  object  of  furious  idolatry,  is  now  more 
hated  and  despised  than  the  most  worthless  of 
his  predecessors,  and  is  only  allowed  to  live  be- 
cause not  worth  assassination.  The  patrimony  of 


104  GOD   IN   HISTORY. 

St.  Peter  is  offered  in  the  streets  for  sale  to  any 
set  of  demagogues." 

Great  Babylon  is  now  coming  into  remem- 
brance before  God;  and  she  who  has  murdered 
men  and  souls,  and  canonized  the  murderers,  is 
now  about  to  drink  that  cup  of  judgment  which 
her  dreadful  iniquities  have  filled  up. 

There  is  a  great  and  palpable  evidence  of  God 
in  the  history  of  our  own  great  land,  which  I  dare 
not  omit  or  dilute. 

Every  time  the  reigning  monarch  of  this  realm 
fostered  or  sympathized  with  papal  supremacy 
and  error,  our  glory  faded,  our  greatness  melted 
away,  and  ruin  stared  us  in  the  face ;  but  just 
as  often  as  the  reigning  sovereign  displayed  and 
acted  on  Protestant  —  that  is,  Bible — Christian- 
ity, the  whole  country  rose  in  greatness,  in  pros- 
perity, in  glory.  This  feature  was  not  the  occa- 
sional but  the  constant.  It  alone  is  proof  of  God 
in  our  history.  Queen  Mary  died,  and  bequeathed 
a  country  replete  with  embarrassments  — disquiet 
at  home  and  desperate  hostility  abroad.  The  only 
plant  that  positively  luxuriated  was  Popery ;  all 
under  and  around  it  was  chaos  —  confusion  — 
eclipse. 

Elizabeth  ascended  the  same  throne.  She  acted 
on  the  fact  that  Protestantism  is  true  and  Popery 
a  lie.  She  crushed  the  powers  of  Spain  —  en- 
franchised the  Dutch  —  advocated  and  enforced 
the  liberties  of  every  people,  however  feeble,  that 
appealed  to  her ;  and  made  her  throne  the  envy 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  105 

of  the  bad,  the  admiration  of  the  good,  and  the 
rallying  refuge  for  all  who  felt  the  tyranny  of  the 
oppressor. 

James  VI.  of  Scotland  ascended  the  British 
throne  as  James  I.  He  manfully  announced  his 
sympathy  with  Protestant  truth,  and  his  allegi- 
ance to  its  cause.  From  that  moment  all  the 
strength  and  cunning  of  the  popedom  were  con- 
centrated on  his  destruction.  The  horrible  con- 
spiracy of  the  Gunpowder  Plot  —  than  which  I 
know  no  nobler  occasion  of  God  interposing  in  our 
history — was  prosecuted  with  a  success  that  gave 
way  only  on  the  eve  of  execution.  Had  this  des- 
perate attempt  not  been  detected  by  a  providential 
interposition,  too  plain  to  be  misapprehended,  the 
whole  history  of  our  country  from  that  day  to  this 
had  been  changed.  God  was  in  the  history  of  that 
reign,  guarding  us  from  Popish  treachery,  and 
keeping  us  for  Protestant  blessings.  Charles  I. 
commenced  a  reign  full  of  promise.  Foreign 
and  domestic  wars  were  hushed,  and  Britain  gave 
token  of  a  bright  and  glorious  career  of  political, 
commercial,  and  national  happiness. 

But  Charles  contracted  a  Popish  marriage,  ac- 
quiescing in  the  requirements  of  the  Infanta,  that 
their  children  should  not  be  suckled  even  by  Pro- 
testant nurses,  and  that  till  thirteen  years  of  age 
they  should  be  under  Eoman  Catholic  teachers. 

What  followed  ?  The  star  of  our  country  was 
obscured;  insurrection  and  feuds  sprang  up  among 
his  subjects ;  confusion  fell  like  a  cloud  on  his 


106  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

councils,  and  Charles  himself  perished  on  the 
scaffold. 

Cromwell  rose  to  supremacy  when  all  around 
and  within  was  faction,  disorder,  poverty,  con- 
tempt abroad,  and  confusion  at  home.  Whatever 
were  the  flaws  or  personal  character  of  that  iron 
general,  his  whole  policy  was  eminently  Protes- 
tant. Wherever  Protestantism  was  crushed  under 
the  hoof  of  the  apostasy,  his  sword  and  treasure 
were  placed  at  the  command  of  the  sufferers  ;  to 
foster  Protestant  Christianity,  and  to  leave  Popery 
to  pine  or  perish  from  the  earth,  was  the  delight 
of  Cromwell,  and  the  glory  of  his  reign.  England 
forthwith  rose  as  on  eagle's  wings :  she  command- 
ed the  reverence  of  the  remotest  nations ;  and,  in 
the  words  of  Dr.  Croly,  whose  splendid  elucidation 
of  these  facts  is  worthy  of  universal  study,  "  He 
realized  the  splendid  improbability  that,  before  he 
died,  he  would  make  the  name  of  an  Englishman 
as  much  feared  and  honored  as  ever  was  that  of 
an  ancient  Eoman. 

Charles  II.  ascended  a  throne  —  glorious,  pow- 
erful and  prosperous,  —  fixed  in  the  conviction 
and  flourishing  in  the  affections  of  his  people. 
He  was  a  Koman  Catholic  in  disguise :  he  used 
every  effort  to  make  his  subjects  and  his  country 
Eomish  too.  Almost  in  an  instant  the  whole 
canopy  of  his  country  was  covered  with  cloud: 
fire  and  pestilence  depopulated  the  capital ;  defeat 
and  dishonor  fell  upon  our  arms  abroad. 

James   the  Second   avowed  himself  a  Roman 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  107 

Catholic.  He  trampled  under  foot  all  law,  and 
trust,  and  precedent,  and  the  country  retrograded 
still.  Determined  to  be  deceived  no  longer,  this 
Protestant  nation  rose  in  its  majesty  and  strength, 
and  swept  the  Stuart  dynasty  from  the  throne,  and 
called  William  to  occupy  their  place.  Acting  on 
Protestant  principles,  he  restored  the  shattered 
condition  of  his  country,  humbled  foreign  aggres- 
sors, quenched  Irish  rebellion,  and  aided  Protes- 
tants wherever  they  were  persecuted. 

I  do  not  prosecute  the  parallel  farther  into 
later  times ;  I  may  however  be  allowed  to  add  an 
extract  from  the  Record  of  September,  1849,  in 
which  the  evidence  of  God  in  the  more  recent  his- 
tory of  our  country  is  very  strikingly  brought  out. 
Without  adopting  every  expression  or  acquiescing 
in  every  conclusion,  one  cannot  but  be  struck  by 
its  facts. 

"  *  Show  me  wherefore  Thou  contendest  with 
me/  is  a  natural  and  proper  aspiration.  Whether 
among  individuals  or  communities,  a  providential 
visitation  ought  to  lead  at  once  to  a  searching 
self-examination,  and  to  an  earnest  inquiry,  even 
addressed  to  friends  and  by-standers,  as  to  the 
probable  cause  of  such  a  rebuke  and  warning. 

"  Yet  it  may  be  admitted,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  bystander  may  err,  through  party  spirit, 
or  from  taking  too  near  or  too  narrow  a  view  of 
all  the  facts  of  the  case.  The  caution,  «  Thinkest 
thou  that  these  were  sinners  above  all  the  Galile- 
ans, because  they  suffered  such  things  ?'  is  clearly 


108  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

intended  to  moderate  our  disposition  to  dogmatize, 
when  dealing  with  this  class  of  subjects. 

"  Bearing  loth  these  texts  in  mind,  let  us  ven- 
ture to  bring  together  certain  facts,  in  the  history 
of  the  last  twenty  years,  which  may  at  least  serve 
to  be  pondered  on,  at  our  leisure,  as  possibly  hav- 
ing some  bearing  on  the  subject  of  our  former 
and  our  present  calamities. 

"  We  must  premise,  however,  that  in  such  an 
inquiry  we  shall  find  it  necessary  to  keep  in  mind 
the  warnings  given  by  Si  Paul,  in  his  second 
epistle  to  the  Thessalonians.  The  apostle  there, 
guided  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  very  plainly  warns  the 
Church,  in  all  ages,  *  when  he  who  now  letteth  or 
hindereth  is  removed  out  of  the  way/ — in  other 
words,  when  the  imperial  power  of  Borne  disap- 
peared,— '  then  should  that  wicked  one  be  revealed, 
— the  man  of  sin,  the  son  of  perdition,  the  anti- 
christ, sitting  in  the  temple  of  God/  i.  e.,  presiding 
in  the  visible  Church. 

"  Now  the  imperial  power,  which  did  then  let 
or  hinder,  has  been  removed  out  of  the  way  for 
more  than  thirteen  centuries ;  therefore,  the  man 
of  sin,  the  antichrist,  has  been  revealed,  sitting  in 
the  very  centre  of  the  nominally  Christian  Church, 
but  being  THE  ANTICHRIST — the  greatest  earthly 
enemy  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  of  his  real  Church. 
All  this  is  confirmed  in  history,  where  we  find 
this  power,  which  succeeded  the  emperors  in  their 
Roman  seat,  persecuting  in  all  ages  the  saints  of 
God — the  Albigenses,  Waldenses,  Lollards,  Wiclif- 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  109 

ites,  Hussites,  and  all  who,  like  them,  rejected 
idolatry,  and  worshiped  God  alone. 

"  This  power  must  be  hateful  to  God ;  and  he 
must  require  his  people  to  contend  against  it.  But 
more  especially  must  he  require  loyalty  in  such  a 
cause  from  a  nation  like  England,  which  he  has 
singularly  blessed  with  the  light  of  Divine  truth, 
and  placed  in  the  very  fore-front  of  the  battle  with 
antichrist  and  his  followers.  *  To  whom  much  is 
given,  from  him  will  much  be  required ;'  and  in- 
gratitude and  unfaithfulness  on  the  part  of  those 
who  have  been  greatly  favored,  will  naturally  ex- 
cite indignation  and  resentment. 

"  Keeping  all  these  things  in  mind,  let  us  pass 
in  review  the  history  of  the  last  twenty  years. 

"  In  the  year  1829,  Sir  Eobert  Peel,  being  then 
at  the  head  of  one  of  the  strongest  administrations 
that  England  had  ever  known,  and  feeling  no 
pressure,  no  necessity,  but  acting  solely  on  his 
own  inclination,  resolved  to  give  up  the  political 
defences  of  Protestantism,  and  to  admit  to  almost 
all  posts  of  influence  and  authority  those  ad- 
herents of  the  Papacy  who  had  for  nearly  two 
centuries  been  excluded.  The  act  was  a  political 
one  merely,  and  exhibited  no  other  feeling  to- 
wards religion  than  that  of  indifference.  It  was 
adopted  by  Sir  Eobert  Peel  as  a  measure  of  poli- 
tical wisdom.  The  Divine  hand  immediately 
caused  it  to  be  seen  to  be  an  act  of  political  folly. 
It  destroyed  the  administration,  broke  up  the 
party  on  which  that  administration  rested,  and 
6 


110  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

gave  the  whole  power  of  the  state  into  the  hands 
of  their  rivals  for  a  period  of  more  than  ten 
years. 

"  Wonderful  as  it  may  seem,  this  enormous  act 
of  fatuity  was  repeated  by  the  same  persons,  after 
an  interval  of  fifteen  years.  Gaining  possession 
of  power  once  more  in  1841,  they  again  proceeded 
to  encourage  and  aid  the  Papal  party.  And  the 
same  results  followed  as  were  seen  in  1829.  The 
conservative  party  was  again  broken  up,  and  its 
leader  was  once  more  thrown  down  from  his 
eminence,  never  to  resume  that  position.  Viewed 
politically,  then,  favor  shown  to  the  Papacy  has 
twice  proved  to  be  ruinous  to  the  party  showing  it. 
They  imagined  it  to  be  the  height  of  wisdom,  but 
it  has  been  seen  to  be  the  very  depth  of  folly. 

"  But  there  are  things  of  more  importance  than 
party  politics.  In  the  Divine  eye  it  may  probably 
be  a  deeper  guilt  to  trifle  with  eternal  truths,  than 
to  confer  on  the  vassals  of  Borne  political  fran- 
chises. We  may  presently  seem  to  speak  of  things 
apparently  small  and  almost  momentary.  But  a 
father  may  be  grieved  and  angered  by  a  disre- 
spectful word  or  a  scornful  gesture.  It  seemed  no 
great  thing  when  David  merely  said,  <  Go,  number 
the  people.7  But  for  that  one  word,  '  the  Lord 
sent  a  pestilence  upon  Israel,  and  there  died  of 
Israel  seventy  thousand  men.' 

"  The  Act  of  1829,  which  introduced  the  vassals 
of  the  pope  among  our  legislators,  soon  bore  bitter 
fruit.  In  the  first  year  after  their  entrance,  it 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  Ill 

became  necessary  to  the  government  to  seek  the 
support  of  Mr.  Daniel  O'Connell  and  his  friends. 
His  terms  were,  '  Give  up  your  Bible  schools  in 
Ireland,  and  place  the  education  of  the  people  in 
the  hands  of  the  priests.7  His  demand  was  con- 
ceded ;  and  on  the  9th  of  September,  1831,  it  was 
announced  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  the 
grant  to  the  Kildare-street  schools  was  to  be  dis- 
continued, and  that  the  education  of  the  poor  of 
Ireland  was  to  be  confided  to  a  board,  of  which 
Dr.  Murray,  the  Komish  archbishop,  was  to  be  a 
leading  member.  Not  two  months  had  elapsed 
from  that  day,  when  the  pestilence — the  first  that 
England  had  known  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
— broke  out,  and  before  its  ravages  ceased  it  had 
carried  off  more  than  fifteen  thousand  souls.  It 
threatened  to  be  still  more  extensively  fatal ; — 
but  even  Ahab,  when  he  fasted,  and  clothed  him- 
self in  sackcloth,  and  went  softly,  was  heard  of 
God :  '  Seest  thou  how  Ahab  humbkth  himself  be- 
fore me ;  therefore  I  will  not  bring  the  evil  in  his 
days/  said  the  Lord.  The  cholera  appeared  in 
London  on  the  13th  of  February,  1832,  and  on  the 
6th  of  March  a  day  of  fasting  was  proclaimed — 
which  was  observed  with  great  solemnity.  The 
whole  mortality  of  London,  from  the  pestilence,  in 
that  year,  extended  only  to  3,200  persons. 

"  During  ten  years  after  this  time  England  was 
in  the  desirable  condition  of  having  a  weak  liberal 
government,  and  a  strong  conservative  and  pro- 
fessedly Protestant  opposition.  In  this  position, 


112  GOD   IN   HISTORY. 

all  further  concessions  to  Popery  became  imprac- 
ticable. 

"  In  1845,  Sir  Eobert  Peel  was  in  a  situation  to 
commit  his  second  great  blunder  and  sin.  Of  its 
political  consequences,  we  have  already  spoken. 
But  its  religious  character,  as  involving  an  act  of 
national  apostasy,  was  more  important,  as  events 
soon  showed.  The  Maynooth  Endowment  Bill 
passed  in  July,  and  not  one  month  had  elapsed 
before  a  strange,  new,  and  entirely  inscrutable 
disease  had  attacked  the  chief  article  of  food  in 
the  sister  country  !  Ireland  was  to  have  been 
tranquilized,  and  rendered  peaceful  and  happy  by 
this  healing  measure ;'  and  Sir  Kobert  Peel  was 
thus  to  have  relieved  himself  from  what  he  termed 
his  '  great  difficulty.7  The  result  showed  how  God 
can  '  turn  wise  men  backward,  and  make  their 
wisdom  foolishness.7  Instead  of  peace  and  har- 
mony in  Ireland,  the  repeal  agitation  grew  fiercer 
than  before ;  and  by  the  attendant  judgment  of 
famine,  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  led  to  his  remaining 
measure — the  abandonment  of  the  corn-laws, — 
which  instantly  dissolved  and  scattered  his  numer- 
ous supporters,  and  removed  him  from  power. 
The  brief  chronicle  of  the  last  three  years,  imme- 
diately following  Maynooth,  may  be  thus  given :  — 
1846,  famine, — 1847,  commercial  ruin, — 1848, 
tumults,  verging  on  rebellion,  in  the  sister  country. 

"  Yet  in  the  midst  of  these  judgments,  or  rather 
on  feeling  the  heavy  weight  of  the  first  of  them, 
the  nation  humbled  itself,  and  God  immediately 


GOD   IN    HISTORY.  113 

honored  his  own  ordinance,  and  showed  his  faith- 
fulness to  his  promise,  —  *  Keturn,  and  acknow- 
ledge thy  iniquity,  and  I  will  not  cause  mine 
anger  to  fall  upon  you/  In  the  spring  of  1847, 
the  judgment  of  famine  being  then  heavily  felt  in 
Ireland,  our  rulers  directed  the  setting  apart  of  a 
day  for  national  humiliation  and  supplication. 
So  remarkable  was  the  response,  so  abundant  the 
harvest  granted  in  the  following  summer,  that  it 
became  an  immediate  and  unquestionable  duty  to 
offer  up  special  thanksgiving ;  and  orders  to  that 
effect  were  issued  in  the  October  of  the  same  year. 

"  We  come,  now,  to  the  events  which  have  re- 
cently occurred,  and  are  still  occurring.  We  can- 
not help  fearing,  that  our  adherence,  knowingly 
and  willfully,  to  a  system  of  education  in  Ireland 
which  throws  the  bulk  of  the  rising  generation 
into  the  hands  of  the  priests,  is  a  national  sin,  and 
is  treated  as  such  by  Almighty  God. 

"  The  year  1848  was  one  in  which  a  special  and 
urgent  appeal  was  made  to  the  government  on 
this  point.  The  bishops  and  clergy  of  Ireland 
prepared  memorials  and  petitions,  signed  by  the 
great  body  of  the  parochial  ministers.  They 
showed  that  the  Protestants  of  Ireland  were  virtu- 
ally excluded  from  all  public  aid  in  the  matter 
of  education ;  and  that  2,400  of  the  *  National 
Schools'  were  under  the  control  of  the  priests. 
They  were  peremptorily  refused  even  the  hope  of 
sharing  with  the  Eomanists  in  the  public  grant. 
This  was  on  the  21st  of  August,  1848.  On  the 


114  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

4th  of  September,  the  Diplomatic  Relations  Bill 
received  the  royal  assent,  and  the  pope  and  the 
queen  of  England  became,  after  a  breach  of  three 
centuries,  friends  and  allies.  On  the  13th  of  the 
same  month,  the  pestilence  reappeared  in  London, 
after  being  absent  for  nearly  sixteen  years. 

"  Warning  was  thus  given,  but  it  was  not  taken. 
*  Because  sentence  against  an  evil  work  is  not  ex- 
ecuted speedily,  therefore  the  heart  of  the  sons  of 
men  is  fully  set  in  them  to  do  evil.'  The  hand  was 
uplifted,  but  it  did  not  heavily  fall.  A  space  for 
repentance  was  mercifully  afforded.  The  destroyer 
was  amongst  us,  but  there  seemed  to  be  a  pause, 
as  though  God  waited  to  be  gracious ; — but  the 
nation  '  repented  not.7 

"  On  the  21st  of  June  in  the  present  year,  [1849,] 
the  question  of  a  Christian  or  anti-Christian  educa- 
tion in  Ireland  was  again  raised.  Neither  now,  nor 
at  any  future  time,  should  the  slightest  change  be 
even  thought  of. 

"  In  t lie  very  next  week  the  cholera  broke  out  in 
all  parts  of  London,  and  the  weekly  deaths  from 
this  disease  augmented,  in  five  successive  weeks, 
in  this  manner :—  124,  —  152,  —  339,  —  678,  — 
1,031. 

"  We  were  now  at  the  end  of  July,  and  the  pes- 
tilence was  sweeping  off  the  people  of  London  at 
the  rate  of  1,000  per  week." 

The  people,  impatient  at  their  rulers'  apathy, 
and  seeing  God's  hand,  met  for  prayer,  and  cried 
as  with  one  voice,  "  Lord,  save — we  perish."  And 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  115 

God  arose  and  rebuked  the  disease,  and  from  that 
hour  it  rapidly  decreased.  Surely  God  was  here. 

Let  me  add  with  all  solemnity,  that  if  our 
country  shall  he  so  infatuated  as  to  give  its  re- 
sources —  our  resources,  our  earnings  —  to  the 
maintenance  of  Popery  and  the  endowment  of  its 
priesthood  in  any  of  these  lands ; — if  the  minor 
aberration  of  1845,  instead  of  being  abjured,  shall 
be  persisted  in  and  developed  in  state  endowment 
of  the  anti-Christian  apostasy ; — then  I  fear  that, 
as  on  former  occasions,  confusion  will  light  upon 
our  councils,  and  civil  broils  at  home  and  humili- 
ating disasters  abroad  accumulate  in  all  direc- 
tions. Woe  !  woe  !  to  our  country,  if  she  deliber- 
ately take  to  her  bosom  what  she  has  so  solemnly 
renounced  and  abjured.  God  in  her  history  has 
heretofore  been  mercy  and  goodness,  inflicting  pa- 
ternal, not  penal  chastisement.  God  in  her  his- 
tory will  then,  I  fear,  be  the  consuming  fire,  and 
having  partaken  of  the  sins  of  Babylon,  she  shall 
receive  in  terrible  measure  of  her  plagues. 

Was  not  the  year  1848  an  appeal  to  our  country 
to  be  true  to  God,  and  proof  that  if  she  be  so  He 
will  be  a  shield  and  buckler  unto  her  ? 

In  January,  the  opening  month  of  that  year  of 
wonders,  Sicily  demanded  a  new  constitution,  and 
Denmark  re-echoed  its  cry  for  another. 

In  February,  Sardinia  obtained  its  charter,  and 
Paris  rose  en  masse,  and  displaced  its  monarch  by 
a  republic. 

In  March,  Saxony  received  the  freedom  of  the 


116  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

press ;  and  Metternich,  whose  wisdom  and  policy 
were  supposed  to  be  a  match  for  all  the  diploma- 
tists of  Europe,  fell  and  fled. 

The  fires  of  revolution  blazed  in  every  capital  ; 
chains  of  iron  were  snapped  asunder  like  threads 
of  flax;  kings,  that  laid  their  heads  on  their 
pillows  at  night,  safe  in  the  conviction  that  a  hun- 
dred thousand  bayonets  were  at  their  bidding, 
awoke  in  the  morning  to  find  themselves  refugees, 
and  their  thrones  blazing  in  the  flames.  A  tor- 
nado swept  the  whole  continent  of  Europe,  and  the 
dust  it  raised  arose  from  falling  thrones  and 
broken  sceptres,  and  the  debris  of  wrecked  and 
shattered  dynasties.  Great  kings  seemed  sudden- 
ly paralyzed  with  terror,  while  vast  masses  of  their 
subjects  were  seized  with  the  fierce  instincts  of  the 
tiger  or  the  lion ;  and  this  fiery  tempest  has  not 
yet  spent  its  fury.  We  can  only  estimate  its 
havoc  by  what  it  has  left  behind  it ;  and  learn  how 
feeble  is  man  when  God  rises  to  punish  the  in- 
habitants of  the  earth,  and  how  loose  is  that 
crown,  and  tottering  that  throne,  which  righteous- 
ness neither  adorns  nor  supports. 

PARIS  has  been  long  on  the  brink  of  starvation, 
and  France  of  national  bankruptcy  ;  and  its  shat- 
tered houses,  and  its  bereaved  families,  are  the 
terrible  proofs  of  the  height  of  that  sea  of  blood 
which  only  now  begins  to  ebb  away. 

Berlin  was  convulsed  with  revolutionary  mobs, 
and  king  and  people  ready  to  draw  the  sword  on 
each  other,  to  determine  whether  law  and  order,  or 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  117 

disorganization  and  distress,  should  be  the  order 
of  years  to  come. 

Vienna  sunk  under  a  terrible  eclipse — murder 
perpetrated  in  cool  blood  by  the  insurrectionary 
mob,  and  avenged  by  speedy  and  righteous  retri- 
bution— its  walls  in  ruins — its  houses  torn  by 
grape-shot,  and  its  once  peaceful  streets  lined  with 
military — are  faint  paragraphs  from  its  chapter 
of  recent  horrors. 

SPAIN,  overrun  with  bandits,  is  kept  from  na- 
tional revolution  by  the  constant  counter-irritation 
which  is  spread  over  its  surface. 

ITALY,  sick  of  its  long  night  of  incubus,  is  in 
arms  ;  and  Pope  Pius  IX.,  who  first  set  the  re- 
volutionary ball  a-going — forgetful  he  was  the 
head  of  a  system  which  might  be  revolutionized, 
but  could  not  be  reformed — is  [1849]  a  refugee 
from  St.  Peter's  and  ready  to  fall  in  with  the  dy- 
nasty that  will  preserve  his  pontificate.  These  are 
the  waves  that  rise  and  lash  the  shores  of  all  the 
countries  of  Europe. 

"Civil  wars  leave  nothing  but  tombs"  is  a  re- 
mark of  Lamartine.  All  history  is  a  commentary 
on  this  aphorism.  God  designs  fellow-countrymen 
and  fellow-citizens  to  live  in  harmony,  in  love,  and 
mutual  good  offices.  Where  Christian  principle 
predominates,  this  will  be  the  case.  But  as  the 
kingdoms  of  this  world  are  not  yet  become  the 
kingdoms  of  God,  it  is  so  far  important  evidence 
of  the  presence  of  God  in  the  history  of  nations 
that  we  find  civil  war  and  internal  factions  leaving 


118  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

only  tombs  behind  them.  Sin  thus  becomes  pen- 
alty— history  records  the  crime,  and  in  due  course 
the  vengeance  that  follows.  In  that  remarkable 
explosion  of  1789,  in  which  assassination  became 
a  trade,  and  "  ideas  germinated  in  blood "  were 
matured  and  taught  to  express  their  fury — those 
terrible  passions  which  have  not  been  laid  by  the 
lapse  of  years,  nor  by  the  successive  dynasties 
under  which  that  otherwise  fine  country  has  pass- 
ed. Crimes  against  heaven  and  earth  were  com- 
mitted in  a  few  days,  which  half  a  century  has  not 
laid,  and  ceaseless  sufferings  have  not  expiated. 
France  is  still  a  moral  volcano.  The  fiery  ele- 
ments generated  in  its  bosom  are  kept  in  check 
by  the  forbearing  mercy  of  God  till  punishment 
becomes  necessary  to  vindicate  the  government  of 
God  and  the  distinctions  of  vice  and  virtue,  and 
1789  expresses  itself  again  in  1848.  Nor  is  there 
a  less  instructive  lesson  deducible  from  a  correct 
apprehension  of  the  men  who  either  originate  or 
direct  the  movements  of  such  revolutions.  Let  us 
view  one  of  the  master-spirits  of  the  first  French 
Eevolution.  "  Marat  thought  to  sum  up  in  his 
own  person  the  whole  right  of  the  numbers,  the 
cause  and  the  will  of  the  multitude.  He  adored 
in  himself  the  divinity  of  the  people.  The  worship 
which  he  had  for  himself,  he  had  inspired  the 
ignorant  and  turbulent  part  of  the  nation  with, 
and  particularly  the  populace  of  Paris.  Marat 
was  in  their  eyes  the  acme  of  patriotism.  Beyond 
the  opinion  of  Marat,  said  Camille  Desmoulins  to 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  119 

Danton,  all  is  naught.  He  goes  in  advance  of 
every  one,  and  no  one  can  supersede  him.  His 
judgment  was  insurrection.  He  disdained  the 
judgment  of  the  Convention,  and  the  blade  of  the 
law.  Devoured  by  a  slow  fever  and  by  a  hideous 
leprosy,  the  visible  scum  of  the  ebullition  of  his 
blood,  he  scarcely  issued  forth  from  the  dark  and 
retired  dwelling  he  inhabited.  Hence,  unseen  and 
ill,  he  ceased  not  to  publish  proscriptions  to  the 
people,  to  point  out  the  suspected,  to  mark  down 
victims  with  his  finger,  and  to  promulgate  his 
orders  to  the  Convention  itself.  The  Convention 
heard  his  letters  with  real  disgust,  but  with  affect- 
ed deference.  The  departments  summed  up  in 
this  man  all  the  terror,  all  the  horror,  and  all  the 
anarchy  of  the  moment."  Such  was  one  of  the 
monsters  in  human  form,  a  list  of  whom  Lamartine 
gives,  each  the  personation  of  some  passion—- 
Marat, fury  ;  Saint  Just,  the  fanaticism  of  the  Re- 
volution. These,  with  others  whose  names  are  too 
familiar,  were  Lamartine's  '  workmen  in  the  cause 
of  humanity.7 " 


120  GOD  IN  HISTOKY. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

RECORDS  OF    HISTORY,   MESSAGES  FROM  GOD  —  CHRISTIANITY  THE 

STRENGTH  OF  ENGLAND REFORM  BILL FREE  TRADE HAPPY 

CONCESSIONS COMMERCIAL     REVULSION POTATO     BLIGHT  

CHOLERA  AND  SANITARY   LAWS BENEVOLENT  AGENCIES GOD 

IN  BIOGRAPHY,  PERSONAL  APPEALS. 

THUS  God  makes  these  sanguinary  civil  convul- 
sions proclaim  their  own  infamy  while  they  last, 
and  shows  in  history  that  the  only  monuments 
they  leave  are  tombs.  The  records  of  history  are 
messages  from  God  to  mankind.  Facts  in  national 
annals  are  nearly  as  indelible  as  texts  in  the  Bible. 
Tradition  may  try  to  explain  away  their  meaning, 
and  party  spirit  and  prejudice  to  darken  them 
with  their  glosses,  but  they  emerge  again  like 
mountain  crags  from  the  mists  of  night,  and  re- 
flect the  light  of  that  better  Sun  who  watched  their 
birth,  and  still  overrules  their  action,  to  testify 
that,  whoever  else  was  present,  God  was  in  his- 
tory. 

But  why  has  Old  England  sat  so  unmoved  upon 
her  throne  in  the  waste  of  waters  ?  Why  have  the 
waves  of  revolution  crouched  and  slipped  away  the 
moment  they  approached  her  ?  Why  have  "  kings 
that  saw  her  marveled,  and  been  troubled,  and 
hasted  away?  Mark  ye  well  her  bulwarks"  — 
what  are  they  ?  Yes — yes,  I  know  and  appreciate 
the  wisdom  of  our  constitution,  the  Saxon  energy 
of  our  people — mighty  in  its  silence — and  the 


GOD  IN  HISTORY.  121 

greatness  of  our  navy,  whose  shadows  ere  now 
swept  the  seas — and  the  heroism  of  our  army, 
which  has  never  advanced  but  to  victory,  and 
never  retreated  but  to  cover  the  retreat  with 
greater  glory  than  the  advance.  Why,  our  horse- 
guards,  if  needed,  would  ride  down  invading  troops 
like  nine-pins,  and  our  42d  Highlanders,  who  awed 
Napoleon's  imperial  squadrons,  would  frighten  all 
their  successors  in  similar  fields.  But  these  are 
our  sinews,  not  our  life — means  of  action,  not  the 
sources  of  strength.  It  is  the  living  Christianity 
of  our  people  that  is  the  life-blood  of  our  country 
— it  is  the  grace  of  God  in  Old  England's  heart 
that  is  the  secret  of  the  fixity  and  splendor  of  the 
crown  on  the  queen  of  England's  brow.  Chris- 
tianity is  the  cement  of  our  social  system.  Our 
people  are  so  loyal  because  they  are  comparatively 
so  religious.  There  are,  no  doubt,  secondary 
causes  of  our  national  peace,  some  of  which  I  may 
venture  to  specify;  and  I  am  sure  you  will  not 
suspect  me  of  expressing  party  political  opinions, 
if  I  refer  to  two  or  three  recent  remarkable  facts, 
full  of  significance  to  reflecting  minds. 

Some  sixteen  years  ago  was  passed  a  celebrated 
bill,  commonly  called  the  "  Keform  Bill,"  by  which 
it  was  understood  the  equilibrium  of  our  constitu- 
tion was  restored  by  extending  the  basis  of  our 
representative  system.  Whatever  were  its  merits 
— and  whigs  and  tories  have  each  their  respective 
convictions  on  the  subject — it  will  be  admitted  by 
all  that  it  was  a  movement  in  the  popular  direc- 
7 


122  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

tion,  and  an   extinguisher  of  many  complaints 
against  our  political  system. 

Some  two  or  three  years  ago,  what  is  called 
"Free-trade"  was  carried  amid  tremendous  ex- 
citement and  terrible  opposition  ;  and  protection- 
ism, like  the  close  boroughs,  be  it  for  good  or  evil, 
is  substantially,  it  is  generally  believed,  among  the 
things  that  were,  and  that  forever.  This  also  was 
progression  in  the  direction  of  popular  power  and 
preference.  Now,  whether  these  measures  be  re- 
garded as  intrinsically  good  or  bad  in  themselves — 
and  it  is  not  my  province  here  to  pronounce  their 
character — what  would  have  been  the  state  of  this 
country  last  spring,  when  the  sea  of  revolution 
that  burst  out  in  France  sent  some  of  its  waves 
against  our  shores,  if  neither  of  these  concessions 
to  popular  demand  had  been  made?  The  dis- 
affected would  have  found — in  the  absence  of  re- 
form, and  in  the  existence  of  the  corn-laws — all 
the  fuel  they  required  for  kindling  a  revolution, 
which,  humanly  speaking,  would  have  blazed  far 
and  wide,  and  probably  have  left  its  black  foot- 
prints from  John-o'-Groat's  to  the  Land's  End.  I 
appeal  to  both  parties — the  advocates  and  the 
opponents  of  these  measures — and  I  say,  if  you 
suppose  and  believe  they  were  both  radically  bad, 
as  pieces  of  state  policy — for  in  this  light  alone  I 
regard  them — do  not  your  peaceful  homes — your 
standing  altars — your  rooted  throne — your  sur- 
rounding law,  and  order,  and  loyalty,  induce  you 
to  thank  God,  that  in  his  providence  he  permitted 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  123 

these  sacrifices  to  popular  demand  to  be  made  be- 
fore the  stormy  tempests  of  1848  swept  over  the 
surface  of  the  earth? 

To  you  who  applaud  these  acts  as  alike  just 
and  necessary,  I  need  not  say,  Do  you  not  see 
God's  mercy  in  the  chronology,  as  well  as  in  the 
character  of  the  measures  ?  Do  you  not  see  they 
were  gained  just  in  time  to  leave  nothing  for  dis- 
affection to  feed  on,  and  very  little  for  discontent 
to  gnaw  at  ?  Good  or  bad,  these  changes  had  no 
little  influence  in  saving  our  country  from  revolu- 
tion, and  in  making  Trafalgar  Square — not,  as  it 
might  have  been,  the  first  of  London  barricades, 
but  the  skirmish  of  pickpockets — the  battle  of 
broken  windows  and  cracked  skulls  —  the  finest 
relief  in  the  world  to  Paris,  Berlin,  and  Vienna. 

I  look  with  interest  on  some  of  those  recent 
visitations  which  we  have  felt  in  rapid  succession. 
We  were  glorying,  in  1845,  in  our  success  —  our 
greatness  —  our  brightening  prospects  of  endless 
prosperity  —  the  iron-rail  was  regarded  as  the 
magician's  rod,  which  had  only  to  be  waved  over 
one's  pocket  to  fill  it  with  gold.  Whole  cities 
rushed  to  the  lottery  wheel  —  trade,  religion,  so- 
cial duties  were  superseded  by  a  mania  almost 
unparalleled. 

God  looked  down  from  heaven  on  our  history, 
and  loved  us  too  deeply  to  leave  us  alone.  He 
touched  the  springs  of  the  national  phrensy,  and 
he  that  laid  his  head  upon  his  pillow  at  night  be- 
lieving himself  rich,  awoke  in  the  morning  and 


124  GOD  IN   HISTORY. 

felt  himself  a  bankrupt ;  and  thousands,  who,  in 
the  whirl,  were  destroying  their  souls,  saw  God  in 
their  affliction — and  tongues  silent  in  prosperity 
praised  him  in  loss  and  ruin. 

Another  year,  a  destroying  angel  touched  one 
of  the  meanest  roots,  and  the  food  of  millions 
turned  to  corruption  in  a  night.  Irish  famine 
only  stirred  up  English  generosity,  as  Irish  rebel- 
lion has  but  provoked  English  forgiveness ;  and 
who  knows  how  many  Irish  hearts  refused  to  be 
excited,  or  how  many  Irish  hands  refused  to  lift 
one  pike  against  the  nation  that  fed  them  in 
famine,  and  clothed  them  in  nakedness?  O'Brien's 
farce  might  have  been  the  paralysis  of  the  empire, 
if  our  country's  liberality  had  not  made  many  of 
his  sympathizers  grateful.  Can  we  fail  in  all  this 
to  see  God  in  history  ?  May  it  not  be,  also,  that 
so  severe  a  judgment  falling  on  this  root  alone 
shall  prove  the  means  of  preventing  a  whole  na- 
tion leaning  for  its  sustenance  on  so  precarious  a 
vegetable,  as  well  as  the  occasion  of  our  statesmen 
doing  something  not  in  the  wrong  way,  as  threat- 
ened, but  in  the  right  direction,  to  redress  that 
miserable  country's  wrongs ;  and  thus  what  we 
began  by  supposing  the  action  of  a  destroying 
angel  may  have  been  the  manifestation  of  God's 
great  goodness  disguised  in  our  great  suffering  ? 

If  again  I  refer  to  the  pestilence,  which  has  so 
severely  visited  us,  and  which  I  trust  is  commis- 
sioned finally  to  retire  in  answer  to  a  nation's 
fervent  prayers,  I  see  in  its  arrival  and  in  its  re- 


GOD   IN   HISTORY.  125 

•treat  —  in  the  localities  it  has  swept,  and  in  those 
it  has  spared — God  in  our  history. 

It  has  stirred  up  our  statesmen  to  study  and  to 
amend  the  sanitary  state  of  our  densely  crowded 
lanes,  and  courts,  and  alleys,  and  to  send  currents 
of  pure  air  and  streams  of  clean  water  where 
neither  had  been  known  for  years.  It  has  aroused 
those  selfish  rich  men  who  care  nothing  for  the 
wants  of  others,  however  pressing,  and  all  for  their 
own,  however  few —  to  open  their  purses  if  their 
hearts  are  still  hermetically  sealed ;  and  for  self- 
preservation,  if  for  no  higher  reason,  to  regard 
the  cry,  and  distribute  to  the  necessities  of  the 
poor.  The  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the 
destitute  is  thus  the  only  way  to  arrest  epidemic 
disease  —  and  thus,  apart  from  mere  spiritual 
grounds,  the  visitation  of  cholera  is  proving  the 
occasion  of  the  amelioration  and  mitigation  of  the 
sufferings  of  the  neglected  poor  ;  and  the  dread 
pestilence  is  seen  to  be  mercy  in  judgment,  and  in 
its  visitation  who  reads  not  God  in  our  history  ? 

Is  it  not  a  fact,  scarcely  less  interesting,  that 
for  upwards  of  twelve  years  prior  to  1848,  the 
year  of  surrounding  revolution  and  approaching 
pestilence,  the  laborious  agents  of  the  City  Mis- 
sion have  been  pursuing  their  subterranean  visits, 
in  the  course  of  which  they  have  reached  and 
touched,  if  they  have  not  transformed,  at  least 
half  a  million  of  that  class  of  our  population, 
which  the  policeman  alone  had  visited  before, 
making  known  their  sufferings,  and  yet  leaving 


126  GOD  IN  HISTORY. 

the  sufferer  hope.  The  judgment-day  alone  will 
show  how  deeply  our  country  is  indebted  for  its 
quiet,  and  the  poor  for  their  elevation,  to  these 
unostentatious  but  ceaseless  agencies  which  the 
world  cannot  appreciate  and  will  not  support. 

The  agents  of  the  City  Mission,  and  the  readers 
of  the  Scripture  Keaders'  Society,  and  other  home 
missionary  institutions  have  exerted  an  influence 
on  the  outcast  and  heathen  population,  of  which 
the  cases  of  conversion  recorded  in  their  reports 
give  a  very  inadequate  idea.  How  many  children 
training  up  in  crime  have  they  sent  to  schools  ! 
How  many  poor  persons  have  they  guided  to  cloth- 
ing societies  and  saving-banks  !  How  many  poor 
have  they  secured  partial  aid  to ! 

We  have  thus  traced,  as  far  as  space  would 
allow,  God  in  history.  We  see  him  imperfectly  at 
best.  The  day  comes  when  we  shall  see  Him  no 
more  "  through  a  glass  darkly,  but  face  to  face." 
When  we  gaze  at  the  rainbow,  after  the  shower, 
we  see  but  a  semi-circle — if  we  ascend  a  loftier 
height  the  semi-circle  approaches  nearer  a  perfect 
circle.  But  when  we  shall  stand  on  the  mount 
of  glory  and  look  down  on  things  below,  we  shall 
behold  the  glorious  circle  complete.  Things  now 
seen  in  fragments  shall  be  seen  whole.  The  dim 
lights  of  time  shall  be  exchanged  for  the  living 
glory  that  has  no  need  of  "  the  sun  or  the  moon ;" 
what  we  know  not  now  we  shall  know  hereafter. 
We  shall  then  stand  with  Christ  in  the  zenith  of 
creation,  and  all  suns  and  systems  shall  culminate 


GOD   IN    HISTORY.  127 

over  our  heads,  and  we  ourselves,  like  persons 
under  the  equator,  shall  cast  no  shadow.  Now 
we  see  GOD  IN  HISTORY,  then  we  shall  read  HIS- 
TORY IN  GOD. 

God  is  in  our  "biography.  Is  your  present 
place,  my  reader,  what  you  expected  ten  years 
ago?  Have  you  not  often  set  out  for  a  predeter- 
mined point,  and  arrived  at  the  very  opposite? 
You  have  toiled  and  prayed  for  some  ohject  on 
which  you  had  fixed  your  heart,  and  afterwards 
learned  that  your  success  would  have  been  your 
ruin,  and  that  disappointment  was  your  greatest 
mercy.  Have  you  not  gone  to  laugh,  and  remained 
to  weep  ?  Has  not  the  turning  of  a  corner  deter- 
mined the  complexion  of  your  future  life  ?  Let 
any  one  remember  all  the  way  he  has  been  led  in 
the  wilderness,  and  see  if  it  be  not  so.  "  Who 

knoweth  what  is  good  for  man  in  this  life, 

which  he  spendeth  as  a  shadow?"  "A  man's 
heart  deviseth  his  ways  ;  but  the  Lord  directeth 
his  steps."  "  Man's  goings  are  of  the  Lord." 
"  In  all  thy  ways  acknowledge  Him,  and  He  will 
direct  thy  paths." 

There  are  no  trifles  in  the  biography  of  man. 
It  is  drops  that  make  up  the  sea:  it  is  acorns 
that  cover  the  earth  with  oaks,  and  the  ocean 
with  glorious  navies.  Sands  make  up  the  bar  in 
the  harbor's  mouth,  on  which  rich  argosies  are 
wrecked;  and  little  things  in  youth  accumulate 
into  character  in  age,  and  destiny  in  eternity. 
All  the  links  in  that  glorious  chain,  which  is  in 


128  GOD   IN    HISTORY. 

all  and  around  all,  we  can  see  and  admire,  or  at 
least  admit ;  but  the  staple  to  which  all  is  fasten- 
ed, and  to  which  it  is  the  conductor  of  all,  is  the 
throne  of  Deity. 

Carry  with  you,  dear  reader,  into  the  warehouse 
— the  shop  —  the  counting-house  —  the  market- 
place— this  living  and  plastic  conviction — "Thou 
God  seest  me."  It  will  sweeten,  not  sadden  life. 
Seek  Him,  and  find  Him  now,  in  Christ,  your 
Father,  and  walk  with  Him  always  —  not  as  a 
maniac  with  his  keeper  —  or  a  slave  with  his 
master  —  but  as  a  son  with  his  Father. 

Be  Christians  first,  and  then  you  will  know  what 
it  is  to  be  happy.  Christianity  is  God  in  the  sun- 
shine of  mercy.  Behold,  believe  ;  look  to  God  in 
that  central  page  of  history — that  epochal  hour 
of  eternity — God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  In  Him 
I  hear  not  the  curses  of  Ebal,  or  the  thunder  of 
Sinai,  but  the  throbbings  of  the  heart  of  God. 

Head  on  that  manger,  "  Though  He  was  rich, 
yet  for  your  sakes  He  became  poor,  that  ye  through 
His  poverty  might  be  rich." 

Read  on  Gethsemane,  "  On  Him  were  laid  the 
iniquities  of  us  all." 

Read  on  that  cross,  "  He  bare  our  sins  in  His 
own  body  on  the  tree ;"  and  on  that  grave,  "  O 
death,  where  is  thy  victory !" 

The  weakest,  poorest,  meanest  reader  has  a  soul 
as  precious  as  the  queen's — more  glorious  than  a 
thousand  worlds  —  immensity  its  element — eter- 
nity its  end — so  fallen  that  it  tries  to  satisfy  its 


GOD  IN   HISTORY.  129 

want  from  earthly  things — so  great  that  it  never 
succeeds  in  doing  so. 

That  soul  of  yours,  my  reader,  if  that  of  an  un- 
regenerate  young  man,  is  sinking  day  hy  day  into 
depths  of  ruin.  God's  great  "bright  eye  is  riveted 
on  it  in  pity,  as  truly  as  if  Deity  and  you  were 
the  only  twain  in  creation.  And  a  Father's  pier- 
cing remonstrance  breaks  from  the  sky — "  Why 
will  ye  die  ?"  And  a  mother's  tender  and  holy 
entreaty  from  a  distant  fireside  sounds  after  it — 
"  My  son,  Absalom,  my  son  ;  my  son,  Absalom  ! 
What  shall  it  profit  thee  if  thou  gain  the  whole 
world  and  lose  thine  own  soul !"  The  last  shock 
comes  on — the  last  trump  is  in  the  archangel's 
hand.  The  pause  realized  in  this  land,  like  that 
given  to  Jerusalem  to  allow  the  Christians  to 
flee  to  Pella,  is  now  vouchsafed  to  us.  Seize  the 
moments  as  they  rush  past.  The  avenger  is  at 
your  heels,  flee  to  the  city  of  refuge.  The  destroy- 
ing angel  has  spread  his  wing  upon  the  blast,  and, 
standing  between  the  living  and  the  dead,  I  invite 
you  to  that  blood  of  sprinkling  which  alone 
cleanses  from  sin  and  covers  from  judgment. 


THE   END. 


GOD    IN    SCIENCE. 


A  LECTURE 


.  loljn  dimming,  $.  JU., 


DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATION, 

IN  EXETER  HALL,  JAN.  7,  1851. 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 


I  ONLY  wish,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that  I  had  full 
power  to  fulfill  the  predictions  that  have  heen  ut- 
tered by  the  chairman,  who  has  so  admirably  ad- 
dressed you :  but  I  have  been  so  busy,  during  the 
last  six  weeks,  in  trying  to  get  rid  of  an  archi- 
episcopal  obstruction  of  the  true  light  in  South- 
wark,  that  I  have  had  less  time  than  I  could  have 
desired  to  set  forth  the  light  that  lies  more  or  less 
latent  in  the  subject  that  is  before  me.  The  fact 
is,  whatever  the  archiepiscopal  visitor  who  has 
made  so  much  noise  may  be  himself,  his  Church 
has  been  a  stern  and  unsparing  opponent  of  science 
in  every  age.  I  am  not,  I  confess,  surprised  that 
Popery  loves  midnight,  and  that  Puseyism,  her 
eldest  daughter,  likes  the  twilight,  and  that  both 
prefer  candle-light,  especially  Eoman  candle-light, 
to  daylight.  A  glass  bead  appears  a  precious 
gem  in  candle-light,  while  it  would  be  detected  to 
be  an  imposition  in  broad  daylight ;  and  some  of 
you  that  are  accustomed  to  colors  know,  that  a 
dishonest  tradesman,  if  you  ever  met  with  such, 


134  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

can  sell  a  color  by  gaslight  that  he  cannot  at- 
tempt to  sell  by  daylight.  Perhaps  you  will  for- 
give me,  if  I  say,  that  the  long-hour  system,  thus 
viewed,  is  essentially  a  child  of  the  Church  of 
Cardinal  Wiseman.  It  is  inherently  Popish. 
It  prefers  always  the  light  of  lamps  to  the  light 
of  day.  Long-hour  employers  can  scarcely  blame 
me  for  concluding,  that  their  goods  will  not  al- 
ways stand  daylight,  just  as  Popish  dogmas  shrink 
from  the  full  blaze  of  Scriptural  truth.  And 
therefore  I  think  it  is  a  wise  resolution  for  us  and 
ours,  however  much  some  dislike  it,  that  we  will 
neither  buy  goods  by  candle-light,  nor  hear  ser- 
mons by  Koman  candle-light,  nor  in  any  other 
light  except  bright  light.  We  Protestants,  how- 
ever, love  all  sorts  of  light,  and  glory  in  it. 
Healthy  plants  flourish  best  in  the  light.  Away, 
then,  with  roodscreens,  and  sedilias,  and  flower- 
pots, and  candelabras,  and  all  such,  or  if  there  be 
anything  more  "Catholic"  recently  introduced,  if 
they  keep  out  the  light.  God's  great  sun,  shining 
in  the  blue  firmament,  is  worth  ten  thousand  of 
the  pope's  longest  candles  any  day. 

Popery,  of  course,  does  not  like  light,  whether 
it  come  from  the  mines  of  geology,  or  the  observa- 
tory of  the  astronomer,  or  the  laboratory  of  the 
chemist,  or  from  the  word  of  God;  and  she  has 
good  reason  for  not  liking  it.  The  holy  coat  of 
Treves  was  paraded  as  the  very  robe  worn  by  our 
blessed  Eedeemer.  Thousands  rushed  to  worship 
it.  Chemical  tests  were  applied  to  it,  and  it  was 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  135 

of  course  proved  by  science  that  its  dye  was  re- 
cent, and  that  it  was  spun  and  woven  not  many 
hundred  years  ago.  Popery  lost  by  the  discovery 
the  profits  that  she  desired.  How  can  you  expect 
that  the  pope  will  like  chemistry?  It  is  our  ac- 
quaintance with  electricity  and  magnetism  that 
explains  the  phenomena  of  Lord  Shrewsbury's 
adolaratas  and  extaticas  in  the  Tyrol.  These 
ladies  are  simply  mesmerized.  Mesmerism  is  the 
miracle,  and  science  at  once  shows  that  it  is  so. 
How  can  Pius  IX.  be  partial  to  electricity,  when 
it  breaks  up  the  income  of  his  priests  ?  The  lique- 
fying of  the  blood  of  St.  Januarius  at  Naples,  the 
red  solid  substance  in  the  glass  bottle  becoming 
liquid  from  the  heat  of  the  priest's  hand  that 
holds  it,  is  certainly  a  miracle  in  the  dark,  but  a 
palpable  cheat  in  plain  daylight.  There  is  a 
painted  virgin  at  Rimini,  at  the  present  moment, 
that  winks,  and  is  known  by  the  name  of  "  the 
winking  virgin  of  Rimini."  This  is  very  wonder- 
ful if  seen  in  the  "  dim  religious  light,"  but  it  is 
explicable  enough  when  we  look  behind  the  scenes, 
and  see  the  priests  pull  the  strings  and  work  the 
pulleys.  Dr.  Cullen,  the  distinguished  archbishop 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  Ireland,  and 
who  is  at  the  head  of  that  Church,  has  boldly  de- 
nounced the  astronomy  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  and 
has  denied,  with  all  the  force  and  eloquence  of 
archiepiscopal  utterance,  that  the  earth  travels 
round  the  sun ;  and  he  has  actually  the  heroism 
to  maintain,  that  the  sun  is  so  courteous,  so  defer- 


136  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

ential,  so  polite  to  the  earth,  that,  instead  of  allow- 
ing her  to  go  round  him,  he,  (the  sun,)  like  a 
thorough  gentleman,  takes  the  trouble  of  going 
round  the  earth  !  At  least  Archbishop  Cullen 
says  so.  But  it  won't  do.  Light  and  science 
travel  onward,  and  truth  is  not  to  be  put  down  by 
any  archiepiscopal  or  Papal  interdict  whatever. 
As  soon  may  an  owl,  by  his  hooting,  try  to  put 
out  the  sun.  Popery  has  done  its  best  to  do  so, 
but  it  has  failed ;  and  you  may  depend  upon  it, 
whatever  be  the  prospects  or  the  prophecies  of 
some,  that  the  experiment  that  is  made  of  import- 
ing darkness,  duty  free,  into  Westminster,  and 
keeping  out  the  light  by  all  the  influence  and 
power  of  a  lofty  ecclesiastical  dignitary,  will  not 
stand.  You  may  depend  upon  it,  that,  prop  it  as 
you  like,  Eomanism  is  in  its  death  struggle,  and 
that  the  red  hat  which  it  has  hurriedly  put  on,  in 
its  haste  from  St.  Pudentiana,  merrily  called  by 
John  Bull,  St.  Impudentia,  at  Rome,  to  St.  George's, 
Southwark,  will  not  prevent  it  making  a  very  pre- 
cipitate retreat  to  Italy,  and  that  right  soon ;  in 
so  far  reminding  me  of  a  countryman  of  my  own, 
who  took  it  into  his  head,  contrary  to  the  pre- 
scription of  his  catechism,  to  plunder  an  orchard. 
He  was  detected  by  the  gardener  on  the  wall-top. 
The  gardener  asked  him  very  naturally  where  he 
was  going,  and  he  with  the  greatest  coolness  re- 
plied, "  Back  again."  Our  gracious  queen  lately 
erected  colleges  in  Ireland,  for  diffusing  light  and 
scientific  knowledge.  The  Eoman  Catholic  Church 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  137 

met  in  synod,  and  denounced  them.  No  sooner 
were  these  scientific  lights — or  rather  foci  of  light, 
for  such  and  so  far  they  were — kindled  in  that 
benighted  and  unhappy  land,  than  the  Popish 
primate,  Dr.  Cullen,  spread  out  his  archiepiscopal 
apron  between  the  light  of  science  and  the  minds 
of  the  benighted  peasantry  and  citizens  of  Ire- 
land. 

All  this,  however,  must  fail.  We  rejoice  to  feel 
that  the  exposure  of  it  is  its  own  condemnation, 
and,  in  some  degree,  its  ultimate  arrest.  The 
railway,  in  spite  of  Archbishop  Cullen,  is  thread- 
ing Ireland.  Its  whistle  screams  amidst  the 
wilds  of  Munster ;  the  electric  wire  stretches  over 
Connaught,  and  the  broad-sheet  is  seen  in  Tip- 
perary.  Light  of  all  sorts  is  rushing  in  at  every 
chink,  and  if  not  yet  universally  Christian,  such 
as  it  is,  it  reveals  the  jugglery  of  Eome,  it  ex- 
poses its  frauds,  it  stirs  up  its  opposition,  and 
shows,  by  the  attempts  made  to  arrest  it,  what 
that  system  is,  and  would  be.  While  popes  and 
cardinals,  allow  me  just  to  a4d,  and  Popish  arch- 
bishops, and  Popish  priests,  are  thus  laboring  to 
darken  the  mind,  to  enslave  the  soul,  and  to 
plunge  our  nation  again  in  mediaeval  darkness, 
how  delightful  is  it  to  witness  the  contrasts  pre- 
sented by  Protestantism,  in  every  place,  in  every 
county  of  every  land,  that  has  been  lightened  by 
its  blessed  and  its  beneficent  beams.  Let  me  men- 
tion just  one  instance,  dear  to  this  association. 
Whilst  an  archbishop  in  Ireland  is  trying  to  put 


138  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

out  the  light  that  has  come  in,  and  other  "bishops 
and  archbishops  in  Italy  are  trying  to  keep  it 
from  creeping  in  at  all,  one  single  employer,  as  I 
am  just  informed  to-day,  in  St.  Paul's  Church- 
yard, has  been  shortening  hours  of  employment, 
originating  libraries,  stimulating  intellectual  pro- 
gress, and  promoting  moral  good ;  and  so  charmed 
are  the  Protestant  young  men  of  this  great  city, 
with  that  good  man's  efforts,  that  they  are  justly 
seeking  to  present  him  with  a  testimonial,  ex- 
pressive of  their  feelings  of  admiration,  of  grati- 
tude, and  of  delight.  Justly  is  this  excellent  em- 
ployer entitled  to  the  cheers  of  every  young  man, 
and  no  less  justly  does  that  system  of  opposition 
to  all  light,  personated  in  Pius  IX.,  Primate  Cul- 
len,  and  even  in  Cardinal  Wiseman,  which  for 
three  centuries  has  excited  the  groans  of  Europe, 
deserve  from  you  and  from  our  country,  the  same 
expressions  of  sorrow  and  disapprobation, — deep  as 
the  dungeons  of  that  Inquisition  on  which  it  is 
enthroned. 

Some  see  in  science  dim  reflections  of  wisdom, 
power,  and  goodness.  Others,  however,  are  so 
blind,  that  they  can  see  in  science  no  central  fact  ; 
they  can  hear  in  its  lessons  no  divine  teaching ; 
they  cannot  see  in  its  object  the  ultimate  end — 
Gfod.  I  want  to  elevate  the  first,  by  showing  that 
the  revelations  of  science  are  so  plainly  demon- 
strative of  the  existence  and  activity  of  a  God, 
that  atheism  is  utterly  inexcusable,  and  that 
atheistic  views  are  utterly  untenable ;  and  next, 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  139 

that  the  absolute  and  professed  atheist  is  the  most 
absurd,  the  most  credulous,  and  the  most  anile 
creature  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
God's  created  universe,  while  on  the  other  hand, 
the  evangelical  Christian,  who  believes  in  a  God, 
and  that  God  his  Father,  is  the  most  rational, 
the  most  consistent,  and  the  least  superstitious  of 
any. 

Atheism  is  folly  as  much  as  wickedness.  But 
suffer  me,  before  I  show  this,  to  say,  that  it  is  ab- 
solutely impossible  that  any  man  can  be  an  athe- 
ist, in  the  strict  sense  of  that  word.  All  that  any 
can  say  is  this:  "No  spot  that  I  have  searched 
does  reveal  a  God ;  every  organization  I  have  ex- 
amined does  not  show  traces  of  wisdom,  goodness, 
and  design:7'  but  that  individual  cannot  say, 
"  There  is  no  God ;"  because  he  cannot  say,  "  I 
have  soared  to  the  farthest  star,  I  have  descended 
to  the  deepest  mines,  I  have  swept  all  space,  and 
searched  all  time,  and  in  the  realms  of  infinite 
space  I  have  not  detected  any  traces  of  a  God." 
In  other  words,  to  be  able  to  say,  "  There  is  no 
God,"  you  must  yourself  assume  to  be  God,  which 
is  a  reductio  ad  absurdum,  an  utter  and  a  complete 
absurdity. 

I  proceed  now  to  show,  that  there  are  developed 
in  the  discoveries  and  researches  of  science,  traces 
of  design,  and  wisdom,  and  beneficence,  that  prove 
there  is  a  God,  and  not  merely  that  there  was  a 
God. 

Take,  for  instance,  a  fount  of  types.    Cast  these 


140  fiOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

types  upon  the  floor  of  Exeter  Hall.  Is  there  the 
least  chance  that  these  types  will  arrange  them- 
selves in  the  shape  of  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost," 
or  of  one  of  Shakspeare's  plays  ?  But  if  you  see 
these  types  taken  and  so  arranged  that  the  printer 
by  them  strikes  off  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost,"  or 
one  of  Shakspeare's  plays,  are  you  not  constrained, 
by  all  the  laws  of  experience  and  of  reason,  to 
infer,  that  there  is  here  evidence  of  design  and 
so  far  of  the  existence  of  a  designing  person,  a 
contriving  mind,  which  arranged  these  types  for 
a  specific  and  premeditated  end?  Or,  to  take 
Paley's  own  beautiful  illustration,  if  you  went 
into  a  desert  and  stumbled  on  a  watch,  and  if,  on 
opening  that  watch,  you  see  that  all  its  cranks 
and  its  wheels  play  apparently  in  opposition  to 
each  other,  yet  all  really  combine  and  co-operate 
to  show  the  hour  of  the  day,  you  must  infer  from 
this  discovery,  that  there  was  a  contriving  person 
who  arranged  all  for  a  definite  and  a  distinct  re- 
sult. Were  you  to  cast  all  the  bricks  you  find  in 
a  brick-yard  on  the  streets  of  London,  they  will 
remain  still  a  heap  of  bricks  ;  but  if  you  see  these 
bricks  arranged  into  the  shape  of  Exeter  Hall, 
you  instinctively  infer  the  presence  and  plastic 
energy  of  design,  and  therefore  of  a  designing 
mind.  Inspect  the  world,  from  the  loftiest  star 
that  burns  in  the  firmament  down  to  the  minutest 
insect  that  flutters  in  the  sunbeam ;  examine  mi- 
nutely all  organization,  and  the  traces  of  design, 
beneficence,  and  wisdom,  will  appear  so  many,  so 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  141 

varied,  and  so  magnificent,  that  the  man  that  in- 
fers there  is  no  Creator  and  Author  of  all,  must 
either  have  a  very  blind  mind,  or  a  very  bigoted 
heart.  In  the  language  of  the  psalmist,  it  is 
"the  fool"  that  "hath  said  in  his  heart,  There  is 
no  God." 

But  I  take  more  simple  things,  and  things  more 
intelligible.  Let  me  notice  evidence  of  design  in 
a  part  of  the  human  economy.  Man  must  eat 
certain  things,  in  order  to  live.  But  I  am  so  con- 
structed that  I  must  thoroughly  know  a  thing  be- 
fore I  am  persuaded  to  eat  it.  First  of  all,  the 
organ  that  is  farthest  from  the  object,  not  likely 
to  be  injured  if  dissatisfied,  called  the  eye,  looks 
at  it;  if  the  eye  be  satisfied,  the  next  organ,  the 
sense  of  smell,  smells  it ;  if  the  eye  and  the  nose 
be  satisfied,  the  next  organ,  the  hand,  takes  hold 
of  it,  and  brings  it  nearer  still.  If  all  three  wit- 
nesses give  their  verdict  that  the  object  is  good 
for  food,  then  the  man  tastes  it,  eats  it,  and  is 
nourished  by  it.  The  atheist  says,  all  this  is  a 
lucky  accident ;  the  Christian  says,  all  this  is  the 
pre-arranged  contrivance  of  his  God.  Which  is 
the  fool?  which  is  the  most  superstitious?  which 
of  the  twain  the  most  anile  ? 

Again :"  the  eye  of  man  has  behind  it  a  mirror 
called  the  retina,  in  which  every  object  that  he 
looks  upon  is  shadowed.  What  a  wonderful  thing, 
that  the  retina  behind  my  eye,  not  so  large  as  the 
lens  of  my  spectacles,  yet  can  hold  upon  its  ex- 
quisite surface  and  reflect  perfectly  the  four  or 


142  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

five  thousand  faces  in  this  vast  hall,  at  the  present 
moment !  But  this  exquisite  organization  which 
constitutes  the  eye,  is  so  very  delicate,  that  the 
minutest  molecule  of  matter  would  seriously,  and 
perhaps  fatally  injure  it !  Well,  how  is  this  pro- 
vided for  ?  There  is  a  thing  called  the  eyehrow 
over  the  eye,  which  subdues  the  light  or  rather 
slightly  shades  the  eye,  and  prevents  from  falling 
into  the  eye  the  grosser  materials.  There  is  an- 
other heautiful  hedge  upon  the  lid,  called  the  eye- 
lash, so  exquisitely  constructed,  that  if  a  fly  were 
to  approach  my  eye,  although  I  were  reading  a 
hook,  yet  instinctively  and  without  asking  my 
permission,  the  eyelid  closes,  and  keeps  the  fly  at 
a  distance.  But  lest  this  organ,  called  the  eye, 
should  he  worn  out  "by  the  friction  of  its  lid  con- 
stantly ruhhing  upon  it,  it  secretes  of  itself  a  sub- 
stance which,  like  the  oil  or  grease  put  upon  the 
axle  of  a  railway  carriage,  keeps  the  eye  from  he- 
ing  injured.  The  atheist  says,  all  this  is  a  con- 
catenation of  lucky  accidents ;  the  Christian  says, 
all  this  is  the  creation  and  result  of  magnificent 
design.  Which  is  the  most  superstitious?  which 
the  most  credulous  ?  which  the  most  irrational  ? 

But  not  only  is  all  this  wisdom  and  this  design 
seen  in  these ;  but  each  sense  that  man  has  is  not 
only  fitted  to  keep  man  right,  hut  is  also  fitted 
to  he  a  channel  to  man  of  exquisite  pleasure.  God 
might  have  so  made  the  eye,  that  it  would  have 
revealed  to  me  the  obstructions  in  my  path,  hut  have 
done  no  more ;  hut,  in  addition  to  this,  its  Maker 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  143 

has  made  the  eye  susceptible  of  the  most  beautiful 
and  interesting  impressions  from  the  panorama  of 
nature  that  is  around  me,  and  from  the  splendor 
of  the  sky  and  of  the  stars  that  are  above  me. 
God  might  have  made  the  ear  simply  an  organ 
for  warning  and  giving  notice  of  the  approach  of 
danger,  and  no  more ;  but,  in  addition  to  this,  he 
has  made  it  a   little   oratorio,  full  of  beautiful 
sounds ;  a  little  choir-chamber,  within  which  I  am 
capable  of  giving  hospitality  to  the  most  exquisite 
harmonies.     He  has  thus  added  to  its  usefulness 
a  sense  of  satisfaction  and  pleasure,  which  indi- 
cates not  only  wisdom  and  design,  but  also  bene- 
ficence and  goodness.     So  in  man's  taste:  God 
might  have  so   arranged  us,  that  we  must  eat 
whether  we  like  the  food  or  not,  in  order  to  be 
nourished ;  but  he  has  not  only  made  that  neces- 
sary, but  he  has  accompanied  that  eating  with  an 
exquisite  satisfaction,  adapted   to   the  organ  of 
taste.     So   that   man   not  only  eats  from  stern 
necessity,  but  eats  with  pleasure  or  delight.     The 
atheist  says,  all  this  is  a  mere  accidental  arrange- 
ment of  rolling  accidents  ;  the  Christian  says,  all 
this  is  the  creation  and  design  of  a  God. 

Again :  the  bones  and  muscles  of  the  human  body 
are  so  admirably  arranged,  that  there  is  the  com- 
bination of  the  greatest  strength  with  the  greatest 
lightness  and  the  greatest  elegance.  Let  me 
show  this  in  one  case.  I  may  remark  there  are 
two  sorts  of  levers  applicable  to  the  human  arm. 
One  lever  would  be  illustrated  were  the  muscles 


144  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

to  take  hold  at  one  end  of  my  wrist,  and  the  other 
end  to  be  fastened  up  to  my  shoulder ;  that  is  the 
most  powerful  lever  we  know.  The  other  form 
of  lever  is,  that  one  end  of  the  muscle  should  take 
hold  of  this  part  of  my  arm,  near  the  elbow-joint, 
but  inside,  and  the  other  hold  of  the  arm,  just 
above  the  inside  of  the  elbow-joint;  this  is  the 
weakest  kind  of  lever.  Now,  you  will  at  once 
perceive,  that  if  the  strongest  were  supplied,  there 
would  be  an  immense  and  unseemly  body  of  mus- 
cular and  other  material  between  my  wrist  and 
my  shoulder ;  and  although  very  strong,  it  would 
be  very  awkward  and  unprepossessing.  The 
second  form  of  lever  is,  therefore,  had  recourse  to. 
But  how  is  it  arranged,  in  order  that  there  may 
be  the  most  elegant  form,  the  arm  be  very  power- 
ful notwithstanding,  and  be  enabled  to  do  all  the 
duties  devolving  upon  it  ?  The  bones  are  made 
hollow,  and  are  thus  strong  and  light ;  and  you 
know  the  hollow  cylindrical  shape  combines  the 
greatest  lightness  with  the  greatest  strength.  For 
instance,  a  bar  of  iron,  twelve  inches  long,  of  one 
pound  weight,  and  solid,  is  not  so  strong  as  a  hol- 
low cylinder  twelve  inches  long  of  the  same 
weight.  Now  it  is  arranged  that  the  bones  of 
man's  arm,  as  well  as  of  other  limbs,  shall  be  in 
the  form  of  a  hollow  cylinder,  combining  the 
greatest  strength  with  the  greatest  lightness,  and 
thus  admirably  fitting  it  to  perform  the  various 
functions  which  are  allotted  to  it,  so  that  the 
weakest,  because  most  elegant  and  convenient, 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  145 

muscular  lever  is  applicable.  The  atheist  says, 
these  are  lucky  accidents ;  the  Christian  says, 
it  is  the  evidence  of  a  God  who  planned  and  made 
it  so. 

In  the  case  of  a  bird's  wing,  you  have  an  ex- 
quisite evidence  of  design.  The  feathers  of  the 
wings  must  be  very  strong,  and  yet  very  light, 
when  you  consider  what  the  wings  of  a  bird  have 
to  do.  For  this  purpose,  the  quills,  at  their  ends, 
as  you  are  aware,  are  hollow  cylinders — i.  e.,  they 
are  the  strongest  and  lightest ;  and  if  you  ever 
note  the  feather  of  a  bird — and  there  is  nothing, 
my  dear  friends,  from  the  cup  of  the  heath-bell, 
to  the  fixed  star  in  the  firmament,  that  is  not 
worthy  of  the  minute  inspection,  investigation, 
and  study  of  man — you  will  find  that  the  side  of 
the  feather  which  strikes  the  air  to  make  the 
bird  float,  is  very  long,  and  being  edgewise  very 
powerful ;  whereas  the  other  side  of  the  feather, 
which  meets  the  air  when  the  bird  draws  it  in,  in 
order  to  strike  out  again,  is  very  small,  so  that  its 
resistance  may  be  trifling.  Does  this  look  like 
an  accidental  thing  ?  If  it  be  accidental,  how  is 
it  that  one  wing  is  not  sometimes  the  reverse  of 
the  opposite  wing  ?  and  how  is  it  that  the  bird  of 
the  one  century  has  not  a  wing  malformed,  arid 
the  very  reverse  of  the  wing  of  the  bird  of  a 
previous  century?  The  atheist  says,  it  is  all 
chance ;  the  Christian  says,  it  is  so  indicative  of 
design,  that  he  cannot  help  concluding  there  must 
be  a  Designer  at  the  bottom  of  it.  Nay,  more  than 


146  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

this: — in  that  wonderful  bridge  which  has  been 
created  by  the  genius  of  one  of  our  most  distin- 
guished engineers,  and  that  spans  a  vast  arm  of 
the  ocean  for  the  railway  to  pass  over — the  remark 
was  made  by  an  eminent  engineer  who  examined 
it,  that  the  whole  cellular  construction  of  that 
bridge  is  excelled  infinitely  by  the  construction  of 
the  inner  material  of  the  stem  of  a  feather  in  the 
wing  of  the  commonest  bird.  For,  in  the  feather- 
bearing  part  of  the  ordinary  quill,  we  have  a  re- 
markable example  of  the  strength  of  the  rectan- 
gular form  ;  here  every  dimension  is  tapered  down 
in  proportion  to  the  strain,  with  an  accuracy  defy- 
ing all  analysis  ;  the  extended  and  compressed  por- 
tions are  composed  of  a  horny  substance  of  pro- 
digious strength,  though  extremely  light  and 
elastic;  the  beam  is  not  hollow,  but  to  preserve 
its  form  it  is  filled  with  a  pithy  substance,  which 
replaces  the  clumsy  gusset-pieces  and  angle-irons 
of  the  tube,  without  interfering  with  its  pliability. 
The  square  shaft  is  peculiarly  available  for  the 
attachment  of  the  deep  vanes  which  form  the 
feather ;  and,  as  the  angular  form  would  lacerate 
its  active  bearer,  an  exquisite  transition  to  the 
circular  quill  at  the  base  is  another  striking  em- 
blem of  perfection.  The  imitation  of  such  me- 
chanics, so  wonderfully  adapted  to  such  a  medium, 
appears  hopeless ;  but  we  are  indebted  to  the 
flying  philosopher,  if  his  attempt  only  calls  atten- 
tion to  such  design,  and  induces  us  instructively 
to  contemplate  the  beauty  of  a  feather. 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  147 

Again:  I  might  notice,  in  the  adaptation  of 
animals  to  their  climes,  the  color  changes  as  may 
be  most  convenient — a  remarkable  evidence  of 
the  very  same  beneficence  of  design.  The  animal 
becomes  white  in  polar  regions,  because  white  is 
the  warmest  clothing  in  cold  weather.  To  allude 
to  one  very  simple  thing ;  the  cell  of  the  bee  is  a 
perfect  study.  Take  the  cell  of  the  wild  bee,  or 
of  what  we  may  call  the  more  domestic  bee; 
what  do  you  discover?  That  the  cell  of  the  bee, 
which  man  so  heedlessly  and  needlessly  destroys 
when  he  takes  its  honey,  is  constructed  on  the 
most  accurate  of  mathematical  principles — so  ex- 
quisitely constructed,  that  it  combines  the  greatest 
strength,  occupies  the  least  space,  and  subserves 
in  every  point  most  completely  the  great  object 
which  is  designed  by  it.  So  that  in  the  planet  in 
the  heavens  and  in  the  pebble  by  the  sea-shore,  in 
the  bee  upon  the  summer  flower  and  in  the  behe- 
moth and  the  leviathan  of  the  deep — in  all  that 
is  magnificently  great,  in  all  that  is  elegantly 
little — scientific  investigation  sees  the  traces  of 
power,  beneficence,  design ;  and  we  are  constrained, 
in  spite  of  all  the  conjectures  of  those  who  at- 
tribute all  to  chance,  to  say,  there  is  a  Creator, 
who  made  all  after  the  prescriptions  of  infinite 
wisdom,  and  has  inspired  all  with  the  deepest  and 
the  most  striking  beneficence. 

To  turn  now  to  another  branch  of  the  same 
subject,  and  a  very  interesting  and  remarkable 
one  connected  with  the  air  that  we  now  breathe. 


148  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

After  you  have  breathed  the  air  and  expired  it 
from  your  lungs,  the  result,  as  every  one  will  tell 
you,  is  carbonic  acid  gas.  The  instant  this  car- 
bonic acid  gas  becomes  cool  it  becomes  specifically 
heavier  than  the  atmosphere  that  is  around  us. 
Carbonic  acid  gas,  as  you  know  by  a  person  going 
down  thoughtlessly  into  a  well  where  it  has  ac- 
cumulated, or  into  a  vat  where  it  has  been  gen- 
erated, is  a  most  deadly  and  destructive  poison. 
This  carbonic  acid  gas  is  exhaled  by  every  person 
in  this  assembly  in  the  process  of  breathing.  It 
is  produced  by  combustion  in  every  dining-room, 
drawing-room,  and  kitchen  fire,  and  in  every  fur- 
nace throughout  the  land ;  and  it  is  generated  by 
these  processes  in  such  quantities,  that  if  there 
be  no  way  of  getting  rid  of  it,  that  carbonic  acid 
gas  must  gradually  accumulate  on  the  earth,  from 
its  great  specific  gravity,  and  this  in  spite  of  the 
law  of  diffusion,  until  little  insects  first  perish, 
then  serpents,  then  the  smaller  animals,  then 
sheep,  then  oxen,  then  man,  in  a  sea  as  deadly  as 
if  it  were  an  ocean  of  water  enveloping  and  cover- 
ing all.  Well,  then,  the  question  occurs,  How  do 
we  get  rid  of  this  carbonic  acid  gas,  which  is  con- 
stantly generated  and  produced  by  every  breath- 
ing man  and  by  every  burning  fire  ?  The  atheist 
would  say,  By  a  very  lucky  accident,  it  happens 
that  all  green  grass,  and  flowers,  and  shrubs,  feed 
upon  this  very  gas  that  would  be  absolute  poison 
to  man ;  so  that  the  gas  which  man  rejects  from 
his  lungs,  as  unfit  for  his  health,  the  grass  and 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  149 

the  weeds  instantly  open  a  million  of  mouths  to 
receive,  and  feed  on,  and  be  nourished  by.  Do 
not  tread  down,  therefore,  with  a  heedless  foot, 
that  little  heath  or  flower ;  it  is  a  poison  destroyer. 
Do  not  despise  that  little  geranium  in  the  flower- 
pot, in  the  poor  man's  garret  window;  it  is  destroy- 
ing the  poison  that  is  around  him.  Perhaps  the 
fact  that  flowers  absorb  poison  is  the  reason  that 
a  distinguished  Tractarian  clergyman  has  flowers 
upon  his  altar.  He  suspects  what  we  know,  that 
there  is  poison  in  his  Church,  which  needs  to  be 
disposed  of,  at  least  in  its  excess,  and  therefore 
near  the  pulpit  are  the  flowers  on  the  altar. 

But  you  may  naturally  ask :  "  This  may  be  all 
very  true  in  the  green  fields  of  merry  England : 
but  what  happens  where  there  is  no  grass  ?  How 
does  the  carbonic  acid  gas  that  is  thrown  forth 
from  the  lungs,  and  produced  by  fire,  disappear  in 
countries  where  there  are  no  green  fields  and  no 
flowers :  in  Greenland,  for  instance,  in  the  polar 
regions  of  everlasting  snow  ?"  Why,  again,  by  a 
lucky  accident,  as  the  atheist  would  say,  snow,  ice, 
water,  absorb  the  carbonic  acid  gas,  as  rapidly  as 
the  green  fields,  the  flowers,  and  the  fruits  do ; 
just  as  in  a  bottle  of  soda-water  the  carbonic  acid 
gas  is  held ;  and  you  know  that  all  fresh  water, 
if  it  be  kept  stagnant  a  while,  ultimately  throws 
out  the  carbonic  acid  gas  which  it  had  actually 
absorbed.  Now,  I  say,  is  it  rational,  or  at  all 
philosophical,  to  conclude,  that  this  gas  which  is 
exhaled  from  man's  lungs  by  every  expiration  of 


150  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

those  lungs,  should  have  provided  for  its  absorp- 
tion the  green  grass  and  the  flowers  that  grow  in 
the  fields,  so  that  what  is  poison  to  man,  and  what 
he  desires  and  must  get  rid  of,  in  order  to  live,  is 
the  very  food  of  the  beauteous  rose,  of  the  ex- 
quisite heath-bell,  of  the  green  grass — the  poison 
of  man,  becoming  the  food,  the  strength,  and  the 
stimulus  of  all  the  vegetable  system?  The 
atheist  says,  it  is  a  lucky  concurrence  of  lucky 
accidents ;  the  Christian  says,  these  scientific  dis- 
coveries prove  the  arrangement  of  a  wise  and  a 
beneficent  God. 

Again,  and  the  evidence  will  become  more  im- 
pressive by  another  fact:  There  is  another  gas, 
which  is  emitted  from  decaying  matter  and  from 
stagnant  marshes  all  over  the  face  of  the  earth, 
most  deadly  if  breathed — called  hydrogen  gas. 
Now,  the  question  is,  how  do  we  get  rid  of  this 
deadly,  pernicious  hydrogen,  generated  by  decay- 
ing matter  over  the  whole  surface  of  the  earth? 
By  a  series  of  lucky  accidents,  as  the  atheist 
would  say;  by  another  wise  and  beautiful  ar- 
rangement, as  the  Christian  would  say.  For  this 
hydrogen  gas  happens  to  be  much  lighter  than  the 
air  that  we  breathe.  The  instant  it  is  generated, 
up  it  shoots  past  man,  into  the  loftier  regions  of 
the  air ;  so  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  for  him  to 
breathe  it  before  it  has  gone  past  him.  But  you 
may  say,  "  It  may  so  accumulate  in  the  lofty  re- 
gions of  the  air,  that  ultimately  it  will  come  down, 
and  man  will  be  constrained  to  rebreathe  it,  and 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  151 

perish  by  the  process  of  rebreathing  so  unsuitable 
a  gas."  The  query  is,  therefore,  How  is  it  got  rid 
of  in  the  upper  regions  of  the  air  ?  Again,  it  is 
said,  By  a  very  luclcy  accident,  it  happens  that  in 
the  upper  regions  of  the  air  oxygen  is  most 
abundant.  It  also  happens,  that  this  hydrogen, 
which  would  be  so  deadly  to  man  if  he  were  to 
breathe  it,  combines  with  oxygen,  and  forms  water. 
But,  then,  in  order  to  make  it  combine,  there  is 
needed  intense  pressure.  Then  how  are  we  to  get 
this  intense  pressure  in  the  uppermost  regions  of 
the  air,  where  the  hydrogen  goes,  and  where  the 
oxygen  is  most  abundant  ?  By  another  lucky  ac- 
cident, there  is  a  thing  called  electricity,  or  mag- 
netism, whichever  you  like  to  call  it.  This  elec- 
tricity, when  it  passes  from  one  cloud  to  another 
cloud,  exerts  a  tremendous  pressure,  and  drives 
the  hydrogen  which  has  escaped  from  the  earth, 
close  upon  the  oxygen  which  prevails  in  the  upper 
regions,  and  they  combine  to  form  water.  And 
hence,  when  you  have  a  thunder-storm,  and  see 
violent  flashes  of  lightning,  you  notice  the  great 
drops  of  fresh  and  clear  water,  that  come  rushing 
down  upon  the  earth:  most  of  these  are  the 
hydrogen  gas  which  ascended  from  the  earth, 
combining  with  the  oxygen  in  the  upper  regions 
of  the  air ;  so  what  was  poison  to  man  comes 
down,  like  all  the  gifts  of  the  great  and  the 
loving  God  we  worship,  in  rich  benedictions  upon 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  habitable  globe. 
Just  notice  the  lucky  accident,  as  the  atheist 


152  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

would  call  it,  that  is  here.  If  this  carbonic  acid  gas 
had  happened  to  be  the  lighter  gas,  and  had  gone 
past  us  into  the  regions  of  the  upper  air,  it  could 
have  combined  with  nothing ;  there  it  must  have 
stopped,  till  it  had  accumulated,  and  come  down 
and  overwhelmed  all.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
hydrogen  had  happened  to  be  heavier  than  the  air 
we  breathe,  it  would  have  lain  on  the  earth,  and 
nothing  would  have  absorbed  it.  The  grass  will 
not  take  it — it  is  resisted  by  vegetation ;  and 
man  would  have  ultimately  perished  by  it.  But 
by  a  lucky  accident  it  happens,  that  the  heavy 
gas  just  falls  where  there  are  waiting  mouths  to 
feed  upon  it — grass  and  flower  and  fruit,  and  that 
the  light  gas  ascends  just  where  there  is  oxygen  to 
combine  with  it,  and  form  it  into  refreshing  drops 
of  water.  The  atheist  says,  this  is  chance;  we 
Christians  glory  in  the  discovery  that  this  is  God. 
Which  is  the  most  superstitious  ?  which  the  most 
irrational  ?  which  the  least  philosophic  ?  I  leave 
it  with  you  to  decide.0 

°  Since  the  lecture  was  delivered,  the  lecturer  has  received 
several  letters,  either  praising  or  finding  fault  with  it.  Such 
as  had  signatures  he  has  read  and  profited  by.  The  only  let- 
ter, however,  of  any  importance  is  the  following,  which  he 
thinks  it  alike  just  and  useful  to  publish.  The  lecturer  is 
but  a  learner  in  science,  he  pretends  to  no  originality ;  and 
if  he  is  wrong  in  this  special  instance,  the  exposure  of  his 
error  will  not  vex  him,  and  like  a  wreck  in  the  channel,  his 
blunder,  if  such  it  be,  will  carry  his  correspondent's  buoy 
floating  over  it,  to  warn  other  lecturers  to  avoid  the  reef  or 
sand-bank. 

The  letter  is  as  follows : — 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  158 

Now,  another  fact,  which,  again,  is  a  lucky  ac- 
cident, as  the  atheist  would  say,  a  "blessed  and 
beneficent  argument,  as  the  Christian  would  say, 
is  this.  During  the  months  of  June,  July,  and 

ST.  THOMAS'S  HOSPITAL,  January  9th,  1851. 

DEAR  Sra, — I  was  present  at  your  lecture  in  Exeter  Hall 
last  Tuesday  evening.  I  need  not  express  to  you  the  pleasure 
I  experienced,  in  listening  to  your  eloquent  discourse  upon 
a  subject  which  is  particularly  interesting  to  me ;  but  there 
was  one  circumstance  which  has  induced  me  to  trouble  you 
with  this  letter. 

Your  lecture  will,  of  course,  soon  be  in  print ;  and  it  would 
be  a  pity  if  some  glaring  errors  in  natural  philosophy,  which 
occurred  in  it,  should  appear  in  the  published  form.  Allow 
me,  then,  as  myself  a  scientific  man,  and  connected  with  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  to  point  them  out  to  you 
that  they  may  be  corrected. 

You  attempted  to  explain  why  carbonic  acid  gas  does  not 
accumulate  on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and  hydrogen  in  the 
upper  regions  of  the  atmosphere.  The  real  cause  is  what  is 
termed  the  law  of  diffusion  of  gases.  Two  gases  of  different 
specific  gravities  never  separate  permanently,  as  oil  and 
water;  but  they  soon  become  thoroughly  mixed:  thus,  if 
heavy  carbonic  acid  be  poured  to  the  bottom  of  a  vessel,  and 
light  hydrogen  gas  placed  above  it,  though  they  be  kept  per- 
fectly still,  they  will  gradually  diffuse  the  one  into  the  other, 
and,  after  a  while,  as  much  carbonic  acid  will  be  found  at  the 
top  as  at  the  bottom,  and  as  much  hydrogen  at  the  bottom  as 
at  the  top.  This  property  of  gases  is,  of  course,  itself  a  beau- 
tiful proof  of  design.  What  you  stated  about  the  absorption 
by  plants,  of  the  carbonic  acid  produced  by  animals,  is  cer- 
tainly the  manner  in  which  the  air  is  prevented  becoming 
surcharged  by  the  noxious  gas,  and  is  one  of  the  most  strik- 
ing provisions  of  God's  wisdom  with  which  chemistry  makes 
us  acquainted.  The  absorption  of  carbonic  acid  by  the 
waters  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  must  also  play  some  part 
in  the  same  arrangement. 

7* 


154  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

August,  the  heat  of  the  sun,  as  you  are  aware,  is 
so  great,  that  if  that  heat  were  to  go  on  increas- 
ing from  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  twelve, 
exactly  in  the  same  ratio  in  which  it  increases 
from  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  nine,  every 
green  thing  would  he  scorched,  and  the  heat 
would  he  ahsolutely  intolerable.  Then,  why  is  it 
that  the  heat  leaves  off  increasing  about  nine — 
that  instead  of  proceeding  till  twelve  o'clock  in- 
creasing and  accumulating  at  the  same  ratio,  at 
just  about  eight,  nine,  or  ten,  modifying  elements 
come  in,  that  mitigate  and  reduce  the  heat.  I 
will  show  you  how,  by  a  simple  illustration.  In 
your  warehouses  and  places  of  business,  on  a  hot 
June  or  July  day,  have  you  not  noticed  the  por- 
ter of  your  establishment  take  a  pail,  with  little 
holes  bored  at  the  bottom,  and  sprinkle  with 
water  the  floor  of  the  shop  and  the  pavement  out- 
side? You  may  have  thought  that  this  was 
merely  to  lay  the  dust ;  but  that  is  a  great  mis- 
take. It  is  a  law  discovered  by  science,  that  when 

Your  remarks  upon  hydrogen  gas  must,  I  fear,  be  entirely 
altered.  Hydrogen  is  not  poisonous ;  it  is  never  given  off  in 
any  quantity,  either  by  vegetables  or  animals ;  it  cannot  rise 
and  form  a  stratum  at  the  top  of  the  atmosphere ;  and  as  to 
the  lightning  preventing  its  accumulation  there  by  causing  its 
combination  with  oxygen — that  is  all  pure  romance. 

I  wish  my  letter  to  you  on  this  occasion  had  been  of  a  more 
complimentary  character ;  yet,  I  doubt  not,  you  have  suffi- 
cient of  that  to  be  often  heartily  sick  of  it. 

I  remain,  dear  sir,  yours  very  truly, 

Dr.  Gumming.  J.  H.  GLADSTONE. 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  155 

water  is  turned  into  steam,  it  absorbs  heat  from 
every  surrounding  object,  as  it  passes  from  the 
state  of  water  to  the  state  of  steam.  Now,  by 
sprinkling  your  shop  floors  and  the  pavement 
before  the  door  with  water,  that  water,  in  passing 
into  steam  from  the  excessive  heat  of  the  day,  ab- 
sorbs the  heat  from  the  surrounding  atmosphere, 
and  walls,  and  pavement ;  and  you  feel  the  shop 
cooler,  and  the  floor  much  more  comfortable  to 
tread  upon.  Now,  in  this  same  way,  in  the  sum- 
mer months,  when  the  sun  has  got  to  a  certain 
degree  of  heat,  about  nine  o'clock,  he  begins  to 
turn  every  dew-drop  that  dances  like  a  gem  upon 
the  cabbage-leaf,  every  streamlet  that  runs  mean- 
dering to  the  mighty  main,  every  pool  of  water, 
and  a  part  of  the  great  sea  itself,  gradually,  by 
his  heat,  from  a  state  of  water  to  a  state  of  steam ; 
and  as  the  water  passes  from  its  water-state  into 
its  steam-state,  it  carries  off  the  excessive  heat 
from  the  surrounding  atmosphere,  and  leaves  the 
day  cooler  between  nine  and  twelve,  instead  of 
leaving  it  in  a  state  of  intolerable  and  fervid  heat. 
The  atheist  says,  all  this  is  a  lucky  chance ;  the 
Christian  says,  it  is  indicative  of  design,  pre- 
arrangement,  in  short,  of  God. 

But  there  is  another  interesting  fact  worth 
knowing.  When  the  sun  goes  down,  the  source 
of  heat,  as  you  are  aware,  is  below  the  horizon. 
How  is  it,  then,  that  there  does  not  take  place  an 
excessive  cold,  that  blights  and  blasts  everything  ? 
By  another  lucky  accident,  as  the  atheist  would 


156  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

say,  those  mists  which  the  sun  exhaled  out  of  the 
drops  of  water  by  day,  in  order  to  keep  the  day 
cool,  are  in  the  night-time  condensed  into  water 
again,  by  the  growing  coldness  ;  and  you  see  that 
water  in  the  shape  of  the  dew-drops,  that  sparkle 
and  that  dance  upon  the  leaves  of  trees,  of  flowers, 
and  of  fruits.  So  that  the  sun  all  day  is  turning 
water  into  mist,  to  keep  the  day  nice  and  cool ; 
and  the  same  sun  all  night  thinks  of  you,  when 
you  do  not  think  of  him,  by  turning  those  mists 
back  again  into  water,  thus  giving  out  heat ;  pre- 
senting in  this  a  beautiful  symbol  of  that  "  Sun 
of  Bighteousness,"  who  shines  upon  us  by  day 
with  an  ennobling  light,  and  slumbering  not  nor 
sleeping  by  night,  thinks  of  us  when  we  forget  to 
think  of  Him. 

The  winter  comes — harder  winters  than  we 
have  had  lately.  Were  the  cold  of  winter  to  in- 
crease during  the  last  six  hours  of  the  night,  as 
during  the  first  three,  every  living  creature  would 
perish.  But  why  does  not  this  cold  increase  all 
night  in  the  same  ratio  in  which  it  began  ?  The 
answer  is,  when  the  cold  has  reached  a  certain 
point,  the  water  begins  to  freeze  ;  and  when  water 
is  passing  from  its  liquid  state  into  ice,  it  gives 
out  heat  most  rapidly ;  so  that  the  intense  cold  is 
modified  by  its  own  action  turning  the  water  into 
ice.  When  a  thaw  comes,  on  a  fine  day  after  there 
has  been  much  frost,  the  heat,  if  there  were  no 
modifying  elements,  would  be  so  intolerable,  that 
no  person  would  be  able  to  stand  it.  How  is  it 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  157 

that  the  heat  of  a  thaw  is  so  gradual?  The  ice 
begins  to  be  turned  back  again  into  water,  and  in 
this  transition  it  absorbs  heat ;  and  thus  the  ex- 
cessive cold,  in  the  one  case,  is  modified  by  water 
passing  into  ice,  and  giving  out  heat ;  and  the  ex- 
cessive heat,  in  the  other  case,  is  modified  by  the 
ice  passing  into  water,  and  subtracting  or  taking 
off  heat.  And  thus  nature  works  perpetually  for 
man,  by  a  system  of  exquisite  balances  and  counter- 
balances, which  the  atheist  says  are  the  results  of 
chance,  but  which  the  Christian  says  are  the  de- 
sign and  the  creation  of  God. 

One  other  fact  I  notice  here.  You  are  aware 
that  sulphur  and  water  cannot  be  mixed  together ; 
they  will  not  mix.  You  are  equally  aware  that 
sugar  and  water  will  mix  together  at  once,  and 
very  rapidly.  Now  if  our  earth  were  as  hard  as 
sulphur,  then  the  showers  would  never  penetrate 
it,  or  they  would  rush  down  in  torrents,  and  do  no 
good  to  the  plants  that  needed  them.  If  our 
earth,  again,  were  as  soft  as  sugar,  you  would 
sink  in  it  after  every  shower;  and  for  all  archi- 
tectural purposes  it  would  be  absolutely  useless. 
The  dry  land,  therefore,  is  partly  soft  and  partly 
hard.  If  all  the  earth  were  powder,  there  would 
be  no  architecture — no  buildings ;  if  all  the  earth 
were  solid,  there  would  be  no  vegetation — no 
plants  striking  their  roots.  But,  by  a  beautiful 
arrangement,  the  loose  sand  is  concentrated  by 
heat,  or  cement,  or  some  other  process ;  the  hard 
rock  is  broken  by  volcanic  agency,  upheaved  from 


158  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

the  sea;  and  if,  a  few  years  after,  you  visit  what 
was  so  dry  and  sterile,  you  find  it  disintegrated  by 
the  lightning,  the  rain,  and  the  frost;  you  find 
that  the  fowls  of  the  air  have  manured  it,  that 
the  earth-worm  has  loosened  it,  and  that  flying 
dust  and  decaying  matter  have  covered  that  rock 
with  a  rich  and  prolific  soil.  The  atheist  says,  all 
this  is  a  lucky  accident;  the  Christian  says,  all 
this  is  the  design  of  God.  These  are  a  few  of  the 
more  prominent  facts  which  I  have  collected,  not 
created.  They  are  hut  instances  of  a  series  and 
line  of  thought  highly  instructive. 

Again :  It  happens,  too,  that  there  are  vast 
coal-cellars  arranged  for  man,  without  consulting 
his  own  opinion  upon  the  subject  at  all.  Large 
forests  were  anciently  submerged,  or  swept  down 
by  torrents;  a  mysterious  Hand  laid  up  those 
forests  for  us ;  and  the  blaze  of  our  winter  fires 
tells  us  that  there  was  a  God  in  his  wisdom  and 
benevolence  providing  for  our  winter  comfort  long 
before  we  were  born.  Iron,  and  coal,  and  lime 
happen  also  to  be  always  near  each  other.  Coal 
makes  the  fire,  lime  makes  the  necessary  flux,  and 
by  the  combination  of  both,  the  iron  ore  is  smelted, 
and  turned  to  practical  and  useful  purposes.  Thus, 
there  is  not  a  mineral  below  the  earth,  or  a  stone 
above  it,  that  is  not  a  text,  and  that  text  inlaid 
with  God.  There  is  not  a  palpitating  heart  in  this 
assembly,  every  palpitation  of  which  does  not  pro- 
claim the  existence  and  the  presence  of  the  infinite, 
the  eternal,  the  all-good  and  wise  God,  our  Father. 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  159 

Scientific  and  religious  truth  may  seem  some- 
times opposed  the  one  to  the  other ;  but  this  is 
only  seeming — they  are  not  truly  and  really  so. 
Get  at  the  truth,  wherever  truth  can  he  discovered, 
and  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  consequences. 
Depend  upon  it  that  the  crow-bar  of  the  geologist 
will  never  upheave  the  Kock  of  ages,  and  that  the 
telescope  of  the  astronomer  will  never  see  a  speck 
on  the  Sun  of  righteousness.  Wherever  you  find 
truth,  seize  it;  and  if  you  cannot  harmonize  the 
truth  that  comes  from  the  mine  with  the  text  that 
comes  from  the  Bible,  do  not  say  there  is  a  contra- 
diction. Wait  patiently;  both  are  beams  from 
the  fountain  of  light,  and  will  meet,  and  mingle, 
and  coalesce,  to  the  glory  of  Him  that  made 
them,  and  to  the  good  of  the  man  that  thus  ac- 
cepts them. 

For  instance:  Geology,  instead  of  obstructing, 
in  my  humble  judgment,  casts  light  upon  the 
Bible.  The  favorite  dogma  of  atheists  has  been, 
the  eternity  of  this  world — the  eternity  of  matter. 
Now  geology  finds  memorials  of  a  period  when 
not  one  of  the  existing  races  of  animals  was  upon 
the  earth.  It  proves,  too,  that  whole  races  have 
been  suddenly  destroyed,  and  that  new  races  have 
been  instantly  created.  In  other  words,  the  dis- 
covery of  geology  is,  that  there  is  no  transmuta- 
tion of  species  whatever.  It  is  not  true  that  the 
ape  gradually  developed  himself  into  the  man ; 
but  it  is  true  that  the  ape  was  created  an  ape, 
just  as  he  now  is,  and  that  "  God  made  man  up- 


160  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

right," — in  his  own  image  made  he  him.  Geology 
shows  that  whole  races  have  been  suddenly  de- 
stroyed, as  if  by  some  great  judgment  of  the 
Almighty,  and  that  whole  new  races  have  been 
instantly  created  by  the  interposition  of  the  fiat 
of  God.  So  that  the  discoveries  of  geology  de- 
monstrate, that  each  link  in  the  chain  had  a  be- 
ginning, and  by  just  and  necessary  inference,  that 
the  whole  chain  itself  had  a  beginning.  And 
thus  it  is  true  that  God's  footprints  are  traced,  as 
Hugh  Miller  has  admirably  done,  in  the  red  sand- 
stone, in  the  subterranean  mine,  in  the  fossil  re- 
mains, in  the  mineral  kingdom,  in  the  saurian 
monster,  and  in  the  ancient  petrifaction:  and 
though  our  Saviour  said,  "  They  will  not  believe 
though  one  rose  from  the  dead/7  a  thousand 
strange  and  mysterious  forms  are  being  extri- 
cated every  day  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth; 
and  these  things  emerging  from  the  dead  pro- 
claim there  is  a  God, — and  that  God  whose  word 
is  the  Bible,  the  word  of  truth.  It  has  been  ob- 
jected by  some,  that  geology  disproves  such  a  fact 
as  the  flood  of  Noah.  Professor  Hitchcock,  of 
America,  says,  "It  is  sufficient,  so  far  as  revela- 
tion is  concerned,  to  have  shown  that  no  presump- 
tion is  derived  from  geology  against  the  truth  of 
the  history  of  the  deluge,  but  rather  presumption 
in  its  favor/'  A  distinguished  professor  in  Ame- 
rica has  shown  that  there  is  no  geological  evidence 
demonstrative  of  such  an  occurrence.  A  recent 
skeptic  French  writer  has  declared  that  the  con- 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  161 

elusion  is  inevitable,  that  there  was  such  a  flood : 
— "  I  shall  be  vexed  to  be  thought  stupid  enough 
to  deny  that  an  inundation  has  taken  place  in  the 
world,  or  rather  in  the  region  inhabited  by  the 
antediluvians.  To  me  this  seems  to  be  as  really 
a  fact  in  history  as  the  reign  of  Caesar  at  Kome." 
Many  persons  have  speculated  upon  how  that  flood 
could  have  been  produced.  A  favorite  account 
for  it  is  that  it  was  through  a  comet  striking 
against  our  earth.  Jf  the  Bible  had  said  so,  the 
discovery  of  astronomers  that  comets  are  gaseous, 
and  not  solid,  would  have  been  a  disproof  of  the 
truth  of  the  Bible ;  but  the  Bible  just  states  the 
fact,  leaving  the  explanation  of  the  phenomenon, 
because  not  required ;  and  while  men's  theories 
change,  and  come  and  go,  God's  word  remains,  in 
all  its  integrity,  "  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever." 

Astronomy  does  not  impugn,  but  cast  light 
upon  the  word  of  God.  The  sun  and  moon  and 
stars  were  not  created  for  the  benefit  of  the  earth, 
but  they  were  appointed  for  the  benefit  of  the 
earth.  For  instance:  at  the  flood,  the  rainbow 
was  not  then  created,  but  God  applied  it  and  ap- 
pointed it  then,  as  a  symbol  of  his  covenant.  So, 
when  this  earth  was  created,  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars  were  not  created  in  order  to  enlighten  it, 
but  the  rays  of  light  were  directed  to  it  from 
them  for  its  enlightenment  and  its  benefit.  And 
it  is  very  remarkable  that  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis,  the  word  which  we  translate  "  lights," — 


162  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

"  He  made  two  great  lights,  the  sun  and  the 
moon," — is  literally  translated  "  light-bearers." 
The  light  was  created  before  the  sun  was  ap- 
pointed to  occupy  his  relative  position  to  the  earth, 
but  was  gathered  up  into  the  sun,  the  sun  being 
made,  not  a  creator  of  light  that  was  not,  but  a 
reflector  of  light  that  was  to  the  earth  then 
created. 

It  has  been  objected  by  some,  that  this  orb  is 
so  minute,  that  they  cannot  conceive  that  God 
should  have  paid  such  attention  to  it,  as  to  send 
his  Son  to  die  on  it,  when  there  are  orbs  infinitely 
greater  and  more  magnificent  in  the  realms  of 
space.  But  this  objection  is  not  sustained  by  the 
analogies  of  our  own  experience.  The  mother 
who  has  seven  sons,  one  of  whom,  the  seventh, 
has  played  the  prodigal,  when  she  hears  the  winds 
blow,  and  the  rain  and  the  snow  beat  against  her 
casement,  though  her  six  children  are  at  home, 
and  comfortable  and  happy  around  her  fire-side, 
in  her  heart  thinks  of  the  absent  prodigal,  and 
prays  for  him,  and  even  forgets  those  that  are 
beside  her.  Again :  when  a  shepherd  has  a  hun- 
dred sheep,  and  loses  one  of  them,  he  leaves  the 
ninety  and  nine,  and  goes  after  what  seems  so  un- 
worthy of  his  care — the  strayed  one  that  has  left 
him.  In  our  own  country,  the  houses  of  parlia- 
ment occupy  a  very  little  space,  yet  within  their 
walls  are  transacted  those  things  that  regulate 
Great  Britain,  and  the  vast  colonial  dependencies 
that  are  associated  with  it.  Thus  the  analogies 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  163 

of  our  own  experience  illustrate  the  fact  of  making 
this  orb  to  be  the  lesson-book  of  the  universe,  the 
exemplar  of  "  mercy  and  truth,  that  have  met 
together,"  and  of  "  righteousness  and  peace," 
that  "have  kissed  each  other." 

Infidels  and  atheists  have  objected,  that  the 
worlds  were  not  originally  made  by  God,  but  that 
there  is  a  sort  of  world-genesis  going  on  in  the 
realms  of  infinitude,  in  which  worlds  are  spun  by 
a  kind  of  spontaneous  action.  The  author  of 
"  The  Vestiges  of  Creation "  said,  that  he  dis- 
covered in  the  heavens  something  which  he  called 
fire-mist,  and  that  this  fire-mist  was  gradually 
condensing  itself  into  little  orbs,  which  little  orbs 
became  greater  ones,  which  greater  ones  became 
the  greatest  ones : — something  after  the  mode  of 
the  Irishman's  pistol,  which,  kept  long  enough, 
became  a  gun,  and  that,  kept  long  enough,  became 
a  cannon.  Lord  Rosse  on  hearing  of  this,  resolved 
to  test  it.  He  therefore  turned  his  telescope  to 
that  very  place  in  the  heavens  where  the  author 
of  "  The  Vestiges  of  Creation "  had  pointed  out 
the  fire-mist  that  was  gradually  being  formed  into 
worlds :  and  that  telescope  discovered,  that  instead 
of  being  fire-mist,  it  was  clusters  of  stars  or  worlds, 
each  perfect  in  form,  revolving  in  their  orbits, 
and 

11  Ever  singing  as  they  shine, 
The  hand  that  made  us  is  divine." 

It  is  not  a  very  ancient  discovery  of  astrono- 
mers, that  the  sun  is  the  center  of  the  solar  sys- 


164  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

tern.  But  just  conceive  this,  that  our  sun,  with  his 
solar  system,  is  only  a  little  group  round  another 
central  sun,  who  has  a  thousand  solar  systems 
round  him ;  and  this  central  sun,  with  his  thousand 
solar  systems,  is  only  another  group  round  another 
central  sun,  in  that  vast  starry  host  that  shines  in 
the  expanse  ahove.  We  see  hut  the  sentinels  and 
the  outposts  of  that  mighty  army,  that  glorious 
host,  the  creation  and  the  government  of  God ; 
and  it  needs  only  imagination  to  spread  her  wing, 
and  to  avail  herself  of  her  foothold  on  the  facts 
of  science,  to  rise,  and  soar,  and  form  a  concep- 
tion of  the  vastness,  the  magnificence,  and  the 
glory  of  Him,  of  whose  grandeur  these  are  hut 
minute  and  microscopic  specimens. 

I  notice  other  instances  of  what  atheism  calls 
accidents.  Mercury  is  forty  millions  of  miles 
from  the  sun  ;  he  does  not  want  a  moon,  and  by  a 
very  "lucky  accident,"  he  has  not  got  one. 
Venus  is  sixty  millions  of  miles  from  the  sun,  and 
does  not  need  a  moon,  and  hy  a  very  lucky  acci- 
dent she  has  not  got  one.  The  earth,  however,  is 
ninety-five  millions  of  miles  from  the  sun,  and  by 
a  lucky  accident  the  earth  has  got  a  moon  exactly 
at  the  point  at  which  she  could  not  do  well  with- 
out one.  These  are  very  like  acts  of  Deity.  So, 
again:  Jupiter  is  five  hundred  millions  of  miles 
from  the  sun ;  by  a  lucky  accident  he  has  got  four 
moons,  exactly  proportionate  to  his  immense  dis- 
tance from  the  sun.  Now,  is  all  this  chance — 
that  the  moons  should  just  come  when  they  are 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  165 

wanted,  should  not  be  given  when  they  are  not 
wanted,  and  that  the  moons  should  grow  in  num- 
ber somewhat  in  the  ratio  of  the  distance  of  these 
worlds  from  the  sun  ?  The  atheist  says,  all  this  is 
accident ;  I  say,  you  say,  the  Christian  glories  in 
saying,  It  is  the  wise  and  beneficent  creation  of  God. 
Let  us  notice  a  few  more  accidents — very  lucky, 
I  must  say.  If  the  moon  were  much  nearer  our 
earth,  she  would  shine  much  more  dimly,  because 
the  angle  of  the  reflection  of  the  sun's  rays  would 
be  more  obtuse.  If  the  moon  were  larger,  she 
would  pull  the  earth  out  of  her  orbit,  as  the  tides 
are  moved  by  the  moon  already.  Were  the  moon 
nearer  or  larger  than  she  is,  our  tides  would  be 
raised  till  they  overflowed  the  whole  earth.  If 
the  moon  were  smaller,  or  more  remote  than  she 
is,  the  tides  would  be  so  insignificant  that  they 
would  be  utterly  worthless  for  our  purposes.  Are 
not  these  very  lucky  chances?  Again:  if  the 
motion  of  the  earth  on  its  axis  were  more  rapid 
than  it  is,  our  days  and  our  nights  would  be 
shortened,  and  the  equatorial  regions  would  be 
covered  with  perpetual  sea.  If  the  motion  were 
slower  than  it  is,  the  sea  would  cover  the  tem- 
perate and  polar  regions,  and  London,  and  all  in 
the  same  latitude,  would  soon  disappear.  Now, 
is  not  this  very  lucky  that  the  moon  is  just  of 
that  size  and  just  at  that  distance  that  makes  our 
tides  useful,  lets  our  earth  pursue  its  course,  does 
its  duty  to  the  earth,  and  does  not  interfere  with 
the  enjoyments  of  the  earth  ?  Is  not  this  very 


166  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

lucky?  If  there  be  no  God,  it  is  to  me  most 
wonderful — most  incredible :  if  there  be  a  God,  as 
there  is,  what  evidence  of  his  wisdom  and  his 
goodness  towards  the  children  of  men ! 

And  hence,  in  teaching  science — in  teaching  all 
science — let  us  never  leave  out  its  ultimate  end — 
the  existence  and  the  glory  of  God.  A  catechism 
that  I  have  been  taught  from  my  infancy,  contains 
the  question,  "  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?" 
The  answer  is,  "  To  glorify  God,  and  enjoy  him 
forever.  That  question  is  not  the  monopoly  of  a 
theological  catechism — it  is  a  question  that  we 
may  ask  of  every  object  of  the  whole  universe. 
What  is  the  end  of  that  star  that  shines  in  its 
orbit  ?  What  is  the  end  of  that  gold  that  is  drag- 
ged from  the  bowels  of  the  earth  ?  What  is  the 
end  of  the  bird  on  its  wing,  of  the  cattle  upon  a 
thousand  hills?  What  is  the  end  of  the  flower 
and  the  grass  ?  To  glorify  God,  and  reflect  the 
splendor  of  Him  whose  breath  gave  every  flower 
its  aroma;  whose  smiles  gave  every  blossom  its 
tints  ;  who  is  the  Creator  of  all,  the  middle  of  all, 
the  end  of  all,  the  object  that  they  all  serve  to 
glorify  and  honor.  To  teach  a  boy  science,  and 
not  to  teach  him  God,  is  one  of  the  most  grievous 
inconsistencies  I  can  conceive.  I  must  say,  that 
if  I  were  appointed  to  a  school,  to  lecture  on 
chemistry,  and  astronomy,  and  botany,  and  all 
those  things,  but  never  to  bring  in  religion,  I 
should  be  excessively  perplexed  and  exceedingly 
fettered.  I  should  feel  myself  in  a  most  awkward 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  167 

position  certainly,  fettered  and  chained  in  the 
prime  function  of  my  office.  It  would  just  he  as 
if  I  were  to  introduce  one  of  you  into  one  of  those 
grand  cathedrals  whose  spires  sparkle  in  the  rays 
of  the  rising  and  setting  sun — cathedrals  which  in 
this  land  have  not,  as  they  have  in  Italy,  dungeons 
very  deep  and  dark  "below  them — and  tell  you  what 
is  the  order  of  the  architecture,  what  is  the  compo- 
sition of  the  stones,  what  is  their  height,  what  the 
space  they  cover,  and  what  the  name  of  the  archi- 
tect, and  after  you  had  admired  the  grandeur  and 
beauty  and  the  order  of  that  great  structure,  I  were 
to  conceal  from  you  the  end  and  the  object  of  it 
— the  praise  and  the  worship  of  God.  My  duty 
would  be,  to  seize  all  connected  with  the  struc- 
ture— its  origin,  its  composition,  its  uses,  and  its 
dimensions — and  to  make  these  subserve  the  grand 
and  ultimate  end,  that  this  is  for  the  worship 
of  the  true  God — this  is  for  the  preaching  of  the 
everlasting  gospel  of  the  Son  of  man. 

It  is  thus,  then,  that  all  science,  when  looked  at 
as  science  ought  to  be  looked  at,  must  teach  us 
there  is  a  God,  and  reveal  to  us,  in  its  most  beau- 
tiful features,  the  attributes,  and  the  glories,  and 
the  perfections  of  that  God.  Hume,  as  you  are 
aware,  the  celebrated  infidel,  in  his  argument 
against  miracles,  says  that  miracles  are  incredi- 
ble, because  we  have  no  experience  of  them.  Now, 
geology  comes  in  to  refute  this  argument ;  for  we 
have  proofs  of  miracles,  of  which  we  have  no  ex- 
perience, by  the  records  of  geology.  The  geolo- 


168  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

gist,  like  a  laborious  sexton,  digs  into  the  depths 
of  the  earth,  brings  up  proofs  of  phenomena  posi- 
tively miraculous,  of  which  we  have  no  experi- 
ence, and  therefore  demonstrations.  So  that  the 
argument  of  Hume  is  absolute  and  intolerable 
sophistry. 

Geology,  too,  shows  that  there  is  no  evidence 
whatever  of  creation  going  on  without  a  Creator ; 
and  in  the  volume  written  by  Mr.  Miller,  it  is 
proved  that  every  creature  was  made  in  its  highest 
state,  and  then  descended.  The  argument  of  the 
author  of  "  The  Vestiges  of  Creation/7  is,  that 
every  creature  was  made  in  his  lowest  state,  and 
then  gradually  developed  into  something  better. 
The  demonstration  of  geology  is,  that  every  crea- 
ture was  made  in  its  highest  state,  and  that  de- 
terioration and  degradation  have  been  the  fact. 
And  Mr.  Miller  a'rgues  with  great  effect,  that  man 
was  made  in  consistency  with  the  universal  analogy 
in  his  perfect  state,  that  he  is  degraded  by  sin, 
but  the  very  degradation  is  the  foreshadowing  of 
a  glorious  elevation,  when  man  shall  be  again  the 
priest  and  the  sovereign  of  nature — the  image  of 
that  God  that  made  him  good  at  the  first,  and  re- 
deemed him  by  his  blood  when  he  had  forgotten 
and  forsaken  him.* 

Geology  has  clearly  demonstrated  that  this 
world  is  not  an  orphan  world — that  God  has  in- 

*  Should  I  find  time,  I  intend  to  illustrate  this  by  copious 
references  to  that  masterly  work,  "  Footprints  of  the  Creator," 
by  Hugh  Miller. 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  169 

terposed  again  and  again,  by  successive  acts  and 
creations.  I  admit  that  this  world  gives  all  the 
evidence,  at  this  moment,  that  it  is  under  the  pres- 
sure of  a  painful  and  a  heavy  curse.  It  groans 
and  travails,  as  the  apostle  says,  waiting  to  be  de- 
livered. And  I  have  often  thought,  when  I  have 
looked  at  the  earth  in  summer,  it  seems  as  if  the 
earth  were  conscious  of  this  very  figure  of  the 
apostle :  in  the  months  of  May  and  June  it  sends 
forth  from  its  bosom  a  magnificent  burst  of  beau- 
tiful and  fragrant  flowers  ;  and  after  it  has  done 
so,  as  if  conscious  that  this  is  not  the  clime  for 
them  to  bloom  forever  in,  it  takes  them  back  into 
its  bosom,  and  shelters  them  from  the  wild  winds 
and  the  biting  frosts,  giving  token  and  foreshadow 
in  these  its  groanings  and  sufferings,  that  the 
hour  of  its  emancipation  and  deliverance  will 
come,  when  creation  shall  no  more  groan,  but  join 
in  the  everlasting  jubilee,  the  key-note  of  which 
is  creation's  Eedeemer,  Christ  and  him  crucified 
and  crowned. 

But,  let  me  add,  while  nature  tells  us  all  this, 
and  science,  interpreting  nature,  tells  us  that  God 
is — tells  us  that  he  is  wise  and  good — it  cannot 
answer  this  question,  Will  God  pardon  sin  ?  Ask 
every  science,  and  it  must  be  dumb  when  you  put 
this  great  question,  How  shall  God  be  just,  and 
yet  the  justifier  of  him  that  believeth  in  Jesus  ?  I 
was  once  speaking  with  my  esteemed  and  excellent 
friend,  that  distinguished  and  devoted  minister  of 
Christ,  Mr.  Baptist  Noel.  He  was  arguing  how 
8 


170  GOB  IN  SCIENCE. 

much  nature  showed  of  the  goodness  of  God. 
"  What  a  proof  have  you  of  that  goodness  when 
you  see  the  lark,"  he  said,  in  his  own  "beautiful 
way,  "  rising  on  untiring  wing,  singing  as  it  rises 
in  the  heautiful  sunshine!  Why,  that  creature 
shows  that  it  is  perfectly  happy,  and  is  an  evi- 
dence to  you  and  me,  that  God,  who  thus  made  it 
and  keeps  it  so,  is  a  truly  good  God."  So  far,  the 
reasoning  seems  conclusive.  I  took  the  liberty  of 
adding  this  remark,  which  I  think  meets  his  argu- 
ment, "Did  you  notice,  my  dear  brother,  a  little 
speck  appearing  just  below  the  lark  ?  That  speck 
blackened  and  darkened,  and  grew,  until  at  length 
you  saw  unmistakably  a  hawk.  That  hawk  seized 
upon  the  lark,  drank  its  blood,  and  effected  its  de- 
struction. If  your  lark  singing  in  the  sunshine 
shows  how  good  is  God,  this  ferocious  hawk  that 
pounces  on  it  and  feeds  on  it,  shows  that  God  must 
be  angry."  In  other  words,  nature  teaches  us 
contradictions  about  these  things;  and  we  only 
find  the  discord  harmony,  the  contradiction  peace, 
when  we  cast  the  light  of  God's  word  on  the  face 
of  God's  world,  and  interpret  the  one  in  the  splen- 
dors and  the  glories  of  the  other. 

Again :  Let  me  show  you  that  the  knowledge 
of  science  is  a  most  important  accompaniment  of 
every  missionary  effort.  You  heard,  I  believe,  a 
very  distinguished  missionary  address  you,  only  a 
few  weeks  ago,  in  this  place,  whose  practical  ex- 
perience in  India  is  long  and  thorough.  Now,  it 
has  been  found  by  him,  and  other  missionaries  who 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  171 

have  labored  in  the  midst  of  India,  that  to  send  a 
missionary  to  India  without  a  knowledge  of  science, 
is  to  send  him  with  one  positive  disqualification 
for  that  great  and  important  office.  The  whole 
Hindoo  system,  as  you  may  have  heard,  is  a 
system  that  embraces  science, — botany,  astronomy, 
astrology,  and  geography ;  and  every  part  of  it  is 
just  as  divine  as  the  other.  For  instance:  the 
Hindoo  believes  that  the  earth  is  a  plain,  that  it 
is  surrounded  by  concentric  belts  of  ocean,  that 
an  eclipse  is  a  great  animal  coming  between  the 
earth  and  the  sun,  and  he  believes  these  things 
just  as  truly  as  you  believe  there  is  a  God  ;  and 
if  you  disprove  to  a  Hindoo  a  single  dogma  of 
this  kind,  you  do  not  merely  make  him  a  better 
philosopher,  but  you  make  him  cease  to  have  con- 
fidence in  his  own  religious  system.  When,  there- 
fore, one  of  the  missionaries  predicted  to  a  Hindoo 
an  eclipse,  that  missionary  shook  the  Hindoo's 
confidence,  not  merely  in  his  astronomy,  but  in 
his  own  faith ;  and  having  thus  dislodged  his  own 
creed  by  science,  the  Christian  missionary  labored 
— and  in  many  instances  most  successfully — to  in- 
troduce into  his  mind  the  glorious  doctrines  of  the 
Son  of  God.  So  that,  to  know  science  well,  in  the 
age  in  which  we  live,  is  to  have  one  qualification 
for  being  a  good  missionary  to  the  heathen — not 
the  alone  one,  nor  the  chief  one,  but  yet  a  very 
valuable  one.  In  this  case  we  see  science  clothed 
with  a  beneficent  mission.  Having  come  from 
God,  it  clears  the  way  for  man  seeing  and  hear- 


172  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

ing,  and  again  meeting  God.  This  is  "but  an  in- 
stallment of  the  uses  of  science — an  earnest  of  the 
part  it  is  yet  to  play  in  the  great  schemes  of 
Providence,  religion,  and  truth.  Is  the  increased 
velocity  of  communication  taking  place  all  over 
the  earth  no  preparation  for  missionary  success  ? 
Is  the  spread  of  civilization,  and  of  social  eleva- 
tion and  intellectual  attainments,  no  contribution 
to  the  extension  of  the  Bedeemer's  name  ?  The 
growing  prevalence  of  the  English  tongue — that 
storehouse  of  profoundest  science  and  of  purest 
literature — is  it  not  a  paving  of  the  path,  a  lay- 
ing down  of  the  rails,  for  the  outgoing  of  the  ever- 
lasting gospel — the  more  extensive  recognition  of 
our  Saviour  Christ  ?  What  wonderful  discoveries, 
contributing  to  the  comfort  of  man,  and  making 
known  the  beneficence  of  God,  have  been  made 
during  the  last  half  century  now  closed!  The 
steam-engine,  called  into  effective  existence  about 
fifty  years  ago,  what  strength  to  man's  hand ! — 
what  ministry  to  man's  comfort ! — what  diminu- 
tion of  the  physical  weight  and  pressure  of  the 
curse — "  In  the  sweat  of  thy  brow  shalt  thou  eat 
bread !"  The  vast  ship,  without  a  rag  of  sail, 
moving  in  the  face  of  the  hurricane,  cutting 
through  the  waves  with  gigantic  energy,  and 
crossing  the  Atlantic  in  less  time  in  1851  than  it 
took  to  make  a  passage  from  London  to  Edin- 
burgh in  1800 ! — is  this  only  for  the  aggrandize- 
ment of  man  ?  May  we  not  expect  that  it  is  for 
the  good  of  man,  and  for  the  glory  of  God  ?  The 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  173 

locomotive  engine,  rushing  along  at  the  rate  of 
fifty  miles  an  hour,  carrying  the  contents  of  one 
village  on  its  back  to  the  homes  of  a  distant  one, 
with  all  the  comfort  of  a  drawings-room ;  and  the 
electric  telegraph,  reporting  the  queen's  speech  in 
Edinburgh  half  an  hour  after  that  speech  has 
been  spoken  in  London, — is  this  for  man's  pride 
only ;  is  it  not  for  God's  glory  ?  It  is  not  mam- 
mon, it  is  not  Caesar,  it  is  not  aimless  accident, 
that  are  the  end,  the  inspiration,  and  the  origin 
of  these  grand  contributions  to  mankind.  They 
are  installments  of  those  wonderful  energies  that 
lie  buried  in  the  depths  of  nature,  waiting  for  the 
approach  of  science,  directed  by  God,  to  come  forth 
and  speak  out  their  origin  and  power,  and  unvail 
the  glory  of  Him  that  created  them,  and  minister 
to  the  happiness  of  man,  who  has  so  long  lost 
sight  of  them.  Is  it  only  for  amusement,  that 
the  sunbeams  paint  the  scenes  of  the  earth,  and 
the  features  of  the  human  countenance  on  the 
sensitive  but  tenacious  tablet?  Is  it  no  evidence 
of  the  interposing  beneficence  of  God,  that  an 
anaesthetic  agent,  called  chloroform,  has  been  dis- 
covered, which  destroys  all  sensation,  and  makes 
a  man  unconscious  when  doomed  to  undergo  some 
painful  operation  ?  Even  from  the  very  spots  on 
which  the  pestilence  gathered  up  its  most  numerous 
victims,  science  is  collecting,  at  this  moment,  facts 
which  will  enable  us  to  alleviate,  if  not  totally 
arrest,  the  ravages  of  another  visitation.  The 
recent  discovery,  for  such  practically  it  is,  that 


174  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

fresh  air  is  as  essential  to  good  health  as  good 
food,  is  now  fixing  Dr.  Arnott's  valves  in  over- 
crowded shops,  compelling  attention  to  overcrowded 
sleeping-rooms,  and  proving,  even  to  the  most 
avaricious  employer,  that  an  hour's  fresh  air  be- 
fore the  business  of  the  day  begins,  and  an  hour's 
leisure  after  the  business  of  the  day  is  done,  will 
give  him  the  largest  return  of  efficient  labor. 
Geology  has  made  new  progress,  and  shown  foot- 
prints of  the  Creator,  and  correspondences  between 
phenomena  and  texts — God  in  his  work  and  God 
in  his  word, — truly  noble  and  truly  delightful  to 
the  Christian  mind.  Astronomy  has  discovered 
new  orbs  in  the  last  fifty  years — Pallas,  and  Juno, 
and  Vesta,  and,  lately,  Victoria,  Parthenope,  and 
Hygeia ;  and  these  orbs  are  not  new  Californias 
for  enriching  man,  but  gems  for  the  crown  of  the 
blessed  Eedeemer.  Electricity,  then,  is  not  an  in- 
sulated jar,  geology  is  not  a  mere  bowlder  on  the 
earth,  astronomy  is  not  a  lofty  and  lone  observa- 
tory, music  is  not  a  mere  solo  strain,  poetry  is  not 
a  mendicant  minstrel,  art  is  not  a  solitary  trades- 
man set  up  for  himself;  but  a  grand  unity  binds 
them  all  in  one,  bringing  them  day  by  day  to  be 
more  and  more  the  echo  of  the  Christian's  anthem 
— "Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth 
peace,  good-will  toward  men."  Steam  and  light- 
ning are  not  secular,  but  divine  powers.  They 
are  inspirations  from  on  high,  preparing  the  way 
of  the  Lord.  All  science,  worthy  of  the  name,  is 
either  a  messenger  to  man,  proclaiming  God,  or  a 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  175 

servant  coming  down  from  God,  to  prepare  the 
way  of  the  Lord.  All  the  sciences,  like  the  Magi 
of  old,  will  come  not  only  to  the  cradle,  but  to  the 
cross  of  our  exalted  Bedeemer.  There  is  no  fear 
that  truth  discovered  by  the  philosopher  will  ever 
shade  or  shadow  in  the  least  degree  the  text 
enunciated  in  the  Bible.  It  is  folly  in  the  philoso- 
pher to  say,  this  discovery  contradicts  the  Bible ; 
it  is  all  but  fanaticism  in  the  Christian  to  feel, 
that  anything  that  is  true  can  possibly  do  so.  It 
is  worse  in  either  to  attempt  to  put  down  the  one, 
or  to  repudiate  the  other.  When  Galileo  saw  the 
oscillations  of  the  lamp  that  still  hangs  in  the 
Cathedral  of  Pisa,  he  exclaimed,  "  The  earth  is  in 
motion :"  the  cardinals  of  that  day  responded,  in 
true  cardinal  style,  "  Imprison  the  heretic ;"  but 
Galileo,  when  made  to  recant  scientific  truth  in 
order  to  save  his  life — a  spectacle  humbling 
enough — nevertheless  rose  from  his  knees  after 
his  recantation,  and  said,  "It  moves  still,  how- 
ever ;"  and  the  earth,  on  the  other  hand,  did  not 
stop  because  these  mediaeval  monks  declared  its 
revolution  on  its  orbit  to  be  heresy ;  but  on  the 
earth  rolled,  carrying  the  cardinals  and  monks 
with  it,  whether  they  liked  it  or  not,  leaving  them 
to  protest  to  the  winds,  and  pursuing  in  its  orbit 
the  career  which  God  gave  it.  And  so,  let  me 
say,  will  it  be  again.  So  will  old  England  still 
pursue  her  majestic  career  of  splendor,  of  good- 
ness, and  of  victory :  let  cardinals  swear — hereticos 
impugnare,  et  persequi — let  Bomish  bishops  in 


176  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

London  comment  upon  the  merits  of  De  Castro, 
who  hesitates  to  decide  whether  it  be  most  canoni- 
cal to  throw  Protestants  into  burning  oil,  or  to 
burn  them  with  fagot  and  fire — let  one  divine  in 
the  east  rear  his  flowers  upon  his  altar,  not  too 
many,  but  just  what  are  canonically  sufficient — 
let  another  in  the  west  re-light  his  Eoman  can- 
dles behind  his  roodscreen — let  the  old  pope  in 
the  Vatican  (see  John  Bunyan's  picture)  fulmi- 
nate new  anathemas  against  our  beloved  queen, 
as  he  has  done  against  Elizabeth  ;  when  the  car- 
dinal can  catch  the  four  winds  in  his  "  red  hat/'0 
when  his  monks  can  hold  the  sun  in  their  "hoods/7 
and  the  followers  of  either  put  out-  the  stars,  only 
then  will  old  England  put  off  her  glorious  dia- 
dem, surrender  her  Bible  to  the  padlock,  and  pay 
Peter-pence  again.  That  celebrated  cardinal  came 
in  with  a  celebrated  bull,  proclaiming, "  We  govern, 
and  we  will  continue  to  govern,  the  cgunties  of 
Essex,"  &c. ;  he  will  retire  as  far  as  this  assump- 
tion of  jurisdiction  is  involved,  exclaiming,  "We 
retreat,  and  shall  continue  to  retreat." 

One  very  short  topic  I  must  notice,  and  I  have 

0  This  expression  may  seem  somewhat  light  to  those  who 
are  unacquainted  with  Romish  rites  and  ceremonies.  But  in 
the  "  Ceremoniale  Romanum,"  vol.  i,  Romae,  1721,  we  find  the 
Ruber  Galerus  as  much  the  distinctive  honor  of  a  cardinal  as 
a  crown  of  a  sovereign,  or  miter  of  a  bishop.  The  pope  puts 
the  Red  Hat  on  the  cardinal's  head,  enjoining  him,  even  to 
the  shedding  of  his  blood,  to  stand  for  the  increase  and  sta- 
bility of  the  holy  Roman  Church.  The  Red  Hat  is  the  sign 
of  power  and  fealty  in  the  cardinal. 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  177 

done.  There  is  before  us  an  exhibition  which  is 
connected  with  science.  I  rejoice,  I  must  say,  in 
spite  of  the  prophecies  of  some,  in  the  prospect  of 
that  noble  evidence  of  peace  and  harmony  among 
mankind.  It  seems  to  me  a  very  noble  idea,  and 
such  I  pray  it  may  prove  to  be,  being  a  lover  of 
science,  as  I  am,  next  to  a  lover  of  my  Bible — I 
pray  to  God,  it  may  fulfill  the  prophecies  of  the 
sanguine,  not  the  vaticinations  of  those  who  augur 
ill.  It  will  teach  us  Britons,  perhaps,  to  be  more 
humble,  and  to  cease  from  measuring  ourselves 
by  ourselves,  which  the  apostle  says  is  not  wise. 
It  may  be  a  contribution  to  the  peace  of  nations, 
by  showing  a  nobler  rivalry  than  arms,  better 
trophies  than  banners  and  garments  rolled  in 
blood,  and  a  warfare  whose  field  is  the  Crystal 
Palace  in  Hyde  Park — whose  artillery  are  steam- 
engines  and  hydraulic  presses — whose  soldiers  are 
philosophers  and  engineers  and  spinners  and 
dyers — and  its  protocols  treatises  on  science,  and 
its  traces  good  feeling,  amicable  rivalry,  and 
social  and  universal  advancement.  Such  great 
movements  have  always  been  connected  with  the 
elevation  and  the  progress  of  mankind.  It  was 
when  the  Medes  and  Parthians  and  dwellers  in 
Mesopotamia — and  I  speak  it  with  a  deep  sense  of 
the  solemnity  of  that  event — were  all  assembled 
at  Jerusalem,  that  the  Holy  Spirit  came  down, 
and  made  them  the  ambassadors  of  God  and  the 
benefactors  of  mankind.  It  may  be,  that  during 
this  great  assembly  of  the  nations  of  the  earth — 
8* 


178  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

of  Jew  and  Gentile,  Greek  and  barbarian,  bond 
and  free — God  may  have  in  store,  unknown  to  us 
— I  pray  that  it  may  be  so — social  blessings  that 
the  world  shall  not  be  able  to  exhaust.  It  may 
be  a  new  era.  At  all  events,  we  may  feel  persuad- 
ed that  multitudes  will  witness  here  what  they 
never  dreamt  of.  Muftis  and  sultans  may  return 
to  Constantinople,  to  make  known  what  Christi- 
anity has  done — for,  it  alone  has  done  it — for  this 
great  land  of  ours.  Yes !  despots  and  tyrants 
from  afar  may  go  home  to  their  capitals,  never  to 
forget  the  impression  of  liberty  without  license, 
loyalty  in  the  subject  without  despotism  in  the 
ruler,  the  omnipotence  of  law,  the  majestic  might 
of  order,  of  harmony,  and  of  peace.  Pope  Pius 
IX.  may  himself  pay  us  a  visit — not  enamoured 
of  the  sciences  any  more  than  of  railroads — to 
sympathize  with  his  disappointed  archbishop  in  the 
borough,  and  to  see  with  his  own  eyes  the  extra- 
ordinary race  that  would  not  thank  his  holiness 
for  a  cardinal,  that  did  not  all  admire  a  bull,  that 
think  a  hierarchy  no  present,  and  that  have  even 
lost  all  liking  for  tractarianism,  the  least  and  most 
amiable  form  of  it.  On  seeing  the  streets  with- 
out bayonets,  which  he  is  not  at  present  accustom- 
ed to,  and  a  queen  without  any  other  battalions 
than  loving  hearts  around  her ;  and  a  city  without 
an  inquisition,  which  he  has  never  witnessed  in  his 
life  before ;  ministers  with  families,  yet  abundant 
in  labors,  and  homes  so  much  more  beautiful 
than  convents  and  nunneries — the  pontiff  may  go 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  179 

back  again  to  the  Vatican,  and  issue  a  new  re- 
script, taking  off  his  anathemas  from  the  Bible 
Society,  and  his  padlock  from  the  word  of  God, 
and  ordering  his  Eminence  on  the  south  of  the 
Thames  to  lay  aside  his  anulus  and  r uber  galerus, 
and  to  become,  if  approved,  a  city  missionary,  a  far 
loftier  rank,  and  preach  to  those  poor  people  in 
what  he  calls  the  "  slums  of  Westminster,"  whom 
he  has  taken  as  a  special  heritage ;  and  thus  the 
worst  that  we  shall  wish  Cardinal  Wiseman  is, 
that  he  may  change  his  creed  and  become  a  monu- 
ment of  the  grace  and  loving-kindness  of  our  God. 
In  conclusion,  nature  is  a  priest  of  God.  Science 
has  shown  that  she  is  so.  Creation  is  a  living 
hymn,  every  sound  of  which  is  praise ;  a  poem, 
every  syllable  of  which  is  a  star  ;  a  portrait,  every 
touch  of  which  is  wisdom,  beneficence,  and  love. 
Dedicate,  my  young  friends,  some  of  your  spare 
hours  to  study  the  rock-crystal,  the  heath-bell,  the 
beautiful  fern,  the  bright  star,  the  creatures  that 
God  has  made,  and  that  he  made  at  first  very 
beautiful.  They  are  worth  your  study.  There 
is  health  in  the  pursuit,  there  is  joy  in  the  dis- 
coveries. Study  all  the  sciences,  but  O !  study 
them  as  they  cluster  round  the  cross ;  study  them 
in  the  light  of  Him  that  hung  upon  that  cross. 
The  Queen  of  Sheba  came  from  afar  to  hear  Solo- 
mon's wisdom ;  "  a  greater  than  Solomon  is  here." 
Let  us  not  go  to  Christ  through  Solomon ;  let  us 
go  through  Christ  to  hear  the  wisdom  of  Solomon. 

The  teaching  of  Solomon  alone  may  precipitate 
C 


180  GOD  IN  SCIENCE. 

you  into  his  sins ;  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians 
alone  may  make  you  like  the  "  fleshpots  of 
Egypt ;"  the  science  of  the  Chaldeans  alone  may 
make  you  worship  the  heavenly  hodies ;  but  the 
knowledge  of  Christ,  the  science  of  Christianity, 
will  bring  you  within  the  orbit  of  everlasting  love, 
and  to  the  acceptance  of  that  precious  sacrifice 
which  is  pardon,  and  peace,  and  happiness  forever. 
Study,  my  dear  young  friends,  the  flowers  of  the 
fields  in  the  bright  light  of  the  Sun  of  righteous- 
ness ;  read  the  starry  sky  beside  the  effulgence 
of  the  bright  and  morning  Star.  Bring  the 
aroma  of  plants,  the  tints  of  flowers,  the  glories 
of  the  earth,  and  the  splendors  of  the  heavens,  the 
gold  of  the  mines,  the  gems  and  the  pearls  of  the 
deep — bring  them,  but  bring,  above  all,  your  own 
hearts — "living  sacrifices,  which  is  your  reason- 
able service." 

I  close  this  lecture,  undertaken  at  your  urgent 
request.  Having  lectured  to  you.  every  year  since 
the  commencement  of  your  noble  Association,  I 
can  now,  with  a  greater  grace,  commit  to  others 
the  carrying  on  in  future  years  the  course  we 
have  so  auspiciously  commenced  and  established. 
God  be  merciful  to  you,  and  bless  you,  and  cause 
his  countenance  to  shine  upon  you!  May  your 
pursuit  and  practice  be,  whatsoever  things  are  true 
and  just  and  honest  and  lovely  and  of  good  re- 
port! And  on  this,  the  first  lecture  evening  of 
1851,  may  the  bells  that  have  rung  out  1850,  in 
the  words  of  a  living  poet, 


GOD  IN  SCIENCE.  181 

"  Ring  out  a  slowly-dying  cause, 
And  ancient  forms  of  party-strife  ; 
Ring  in  the  nobler  modes  of  life, 
With  sweeter  morals,  purer  laws. 
Ring  out  the  shapes  of  foul  disease, 
Ring  out  the  narrowing  lust  of  gold, 
Ring  out  the  thousand  wars  of  old, 
Ring  in  the  thousand  years  of  peace. 
Ring  in  the  valiant  man,  and  true, 
The  larger  heart,  the  kindlier  hand ; 
Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land, 
Ring  in  the  light  that  is  to  be !" 


THE  END. 


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Fletcher  of  Madeley,  Life  of. 

Life  of  John  Fletcher,  compiled  from  Wesley's  Narrative,  the 
Biographical  Notes  of  Mr.  Gilpin,  from  his  own  Letters, 
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so  inwardly  and  outwardly  devoted  to  God. — JOHN  WESLEY. 
No  age  or  country  has  ever  produced  a  man  of  more  fervent  piety 
or  more  perfect  charity ;  no  church  has  ever  possessed  a  more 
apostolic  minister. — ROBERT  SOUTHEY. 

Mr.  Fletcher  was  one  of  the  holiest  men  that  ever  lived  ;  next  to 
Mr.  Wesley,  he  was  the  ablest  advocate  of  the  Methodist  truths  ; 
and  no  man  ever  adorned  them  by  a  purer  life,  or  a  more  burn- 
ing, active  love. — THOS.  JACKSON. 

A  man  mighty  in  the  Scriptures,  and  full  of  the  unction  of  God. — 
DB.  A.  CLARKE. 

Fletcher  s  Letters. 

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letters  of  Doddridge,  Cowper,  and  Newton. — N.  Y.  Evangelist. 

These  letters  are  full  of  the  spirit  of  piety.  No  man  can  read 
them,  who  has  a  spark  of  religion  in  his  heart,  without  feeling 
his  love  enkindled  to  a  flame.—  Methodist  Protestant. 

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